“Thank God, we don’t owe any thing:  not a penny!” gasped Hilary.

“No; there is comfort in that,” said Johanna.  And the expression of her folded hands and upward face was not despairing, even though that of the poor widow, when her barrel of meal was gone, and her cruse of oil spent, would hardly have been sadder.

“I am sure we have wasted nothing, and cheated nobody;—­surely God will help us.”

“I know He will, my child.”

And the two sisters, elder and younger, kissed one another, cried a little, and then sat down to consider what was to be done.

Ascott must be told how things were with them.  Hitherto they had not troubled him much with their affairs:  indeed, he was so little at home.  And after some private consultation, both Johanna and Hilary decided that it was wisest to let the lad come and go as he liked; not attempting—­as he once indignantly expressed it—­“to tie him to their apron strings.”  For instinctively these maiden ladies felt that with men, and, above all, young men, the only way to bind the wandering heart was to leave it free, except by trying their utmost that home should be always a pleasant home.

It was touching to see their efforts, when Ascott came in of evenings, to enliven for his sake the dull parlor at No. 15.  How Johanna put away her mending, and Selina ceased to grumble, and Hilary began her lively chat, that never failed to brighten and amuse the household.  Her nephew even sometimes acknowledged that wherever he went, he met nobody so “clever” as Aunt Hilary.

So, presuming upon her influence with him, on this night, after the rest were gone to bed, she, being always the boldest to do any unpleasant thing, said to him.

“Ascott, how are your business affairs progressing?  When do you think you will be able to get into practice?”

“Oh, presently.  There’s no hurry.”

“I am not so sure of that.  Do you know, my dear boy”—­and she opened her purse, which contained a few shillings—­“this is all the money we have in the world.”

“Nonsense,” said Ascott, laughing.  “I beg your pardon,” he added, seeing it was with her no laughing matter; “but I am so accustomed to be hard up that I don’t seem to care.  It always comes right somehow—­at least with me.”

“How?”

“Oh, I don’t exactly know; but it does.  Don’t fret, Aunt Hilary.  I’ll lend you a pound or two.”

She drew back.  These poor, proud, fond women, who, if their boy, instead of a fine gentleman, had been a helpless invalid, would have tended him, worked for him, nay, begged for him—­cheerfully, oh, how cheerfully! wanting nothing in the whole world but his love—­they could not ask him for his money.  Even now, offered thus, Hilary felt as if to take it would be intolerable.

Still the thing must be done.

“I wish, Ascott”—­and she nerved herself to say what somebody ought to say to him—­“I would you would not lend but pay us the pound a week you said you could so easily spare.”