Prosperity's child

THE November day, which had been dull and chilly, was closing in, and a thick mist was settling over the metropolis, making the traffic in the streets slow and difficult, and causing those whose business lay in the city no small anxiety as to how they would reach their various suburban homes that night; for, as was patent to everybody, in a very short while all London would be enveloped in a dense fog.

In the sitting-room of a certain small villa at Streatham, a family group was assembled around the fire, talking and laughing. It comprised, Mrs. Wyndham and her five children—Ruth and Violet, aged fifteen and fourteen respectively; Madge, who was twelve; and Frank and Billy, who were twins of not quite ten years old. The gas had not been lit, but the fire fitfully illuminated the room, which was certainly anything but neat or well kept, for the furniture was dull if not actually dusty, the lace curtains on either side of the window were soiled and limp, and the tea-cloth on the table was crumpled and not over clean. Even in the kindly firelight the room looked poor and neglected, and yet it was evident that its general appearance might have been improved at very little cost.

"I hope your father will come home soon for it's getting very foggy, I see," Mrs. Wyndham remarked by-and-by when there was a pause in the children's chatter. Her voice was soft and musical, with a plaintive note in it. "He coughed continually during the night, he quite alarmed me," she added, with a deep-drawn sigh.

"I heard him," the eldest girl said, turning a pair of serious, dark eyes from the fire to her mother's face; "I spoke to him about it after breakfast, and he said he would get some cough mixture from a chemist: I hope he won't forget."

"I hope not," Mrs. Wyndham replied. "I am sure it is no wonder that he ails so often," she proceeded, "always rushing here, there, and everywhere as he does, getting his meals so irregularly, and wearing clothes which do not properly protect him from the cold and damp. He ought to have both a new overcoat and a new waterproof this winter, but how he is to get either I really do not know. Dear me, it's nearly five o'clock. I hope Barbara has the kettle on the boil: I wish one of you would go and see—not you, Billy, you're always quarrelling with Barbara, you tease her and make her cross. Let Madge go. And Violet, you light the gas and pull down the blind."

Madge left the room to do her mother's bidding, whilst Violet, before lighting the gas, went to the window and peered out into the mist, remarking that it was so thick that she could hardly see the street lamps. Ruth kept her seat by the fire; she was listening for her father's footsteps—or his cough, which had haunted her ears all day.

The Wyndhams were all nice-looking children, tall for their ages and well-grown; they greatly resembled their mother in appearance. Mrs. Wyndham was a pretty woman, having a clear complexion, small regular features, and brown eyes and hair. At the time of her marriage she had been a lovely girl; but now she was somewhat faded and careworn, and she always seemed weighed down with domestic worries.

Mr. Wyndham held a post on a popular daily paper; but, unfortunately, his wife was no manager, and he was generally exercised in mind how to make his income cover his expenses, which he was not always successful in doing. If his wife was not the helpmeet to him he had hoped she would be, he never admitted the fact; and if his home was not as comfortable as those of other men who earned less than he did, he never complained but made the best of things, telling himself that he had much to be thankful for in that his family was both a happy and a healthy one.

He was deeply attached to his children, and they were very fond of him; but Ruth, without doubt, was more to him than the others. Young as she was, she was in his confidence; she was interested in his work as work, not only as a means of providing the necessaries of life, and he realised, as her mother did not, that he loved his profession and was ambitious to succeed in it. In short, she understood him; and her love for him was so deep and unselfish that she would have been capable of making any sacrifice for his sake.

By-and-by Ruth rose from her seat by the fire, and slipped quietly out of the room. There was no light in the passage, so she lit the gas there, and, as soon as she had done so, the front door opened and her father entered. She sprang to meet him, and, after having given him a hearty kiss, proceeded to assist him in taking off his overcoat. Mr. Wyndham was a tall, thin man with stooping shoulders and near-sighted dark eyes. As a rule his expression was thoughtful and pre-occupied; but to-night, as his daughter observed at once, he looked particularly alert.

"Well, Ruthie," he began, "is tea ready? I'm longing for 'the cup which cheers,' for the fog is enough to choke one. I'm glad to be at home and to know that I shall not have to go out again to-night."

He followed Ruth into the sitting-room as he spoke, and glanced around with smiling eyes. His wife's face brightened as she saw his look, and she greeted him with an answering smile, whilst Madge and the boys began to question him about the fog. Was it much worse in the City than at Streatham? Did he think it would last long? Had he any difficulty in finding his way from the station?

"I should think it is worse in the City," was the reply; "everything will be at a standstill soon if the fog continues, and it does not appear likely to lift yet. I had to stop every now and again as I came from the station to make sure I was in the right road, and that delayed me. Ah, here's tea! That's good."

Violet now entered the room followed by Barbara, the maid-of-all-work, who was a rather untidy-looking specimen of her class. She had been with the Wyndhams for more than two years, and had fallen into the ways of the family; she was always a little late with everything, always "in a rush" as she expressed it, but she suited her employers and was good-natured to a fault. Before the advent of Barbara the Wyndhams had never been able to keep a servant for long; but Barbara had settled down comfortably at once, and seemed likely to remain a fixture. She was a little body, with a freckled countenance and the roundest of green eyes, and her cap was generally askew on her sandy hair; but there was a vast amount of energy and strength in her slight frame, and she worked with a will.

Having placed the tea on the table, Barbara retired, and the meal commenced. The children had most of the conversation at first, and gave their father various items of information about their doings during the day. The twins attended a preparatory school for boys, not five minutes walk from their own home, and the girls had not much farther to go. Ruth was not to return to the same school as her sisters after Christmas; for it was only a school for young girls, kept by a lady named Minter, and Ruth was the eldest pupil.

Mr. Wyndham talked of sending her to a boarding-school for a couple of years, but how that was to be managed he did not quite know, and it was Ruth's private opinion that her education, as far as schooling went, would be finished when she left Miss Minter's. That she would not mind, she told herself, if only she could have lessons in drawing and painting—she was devoted to the pencil and the brush, and she would have time to help her mother and Barbara and to try to get things in better order; for, of late, the general untidiness of her home had vaguely troubled her.

By-and-by Mr. Wyndham coughed, and his wife asked him if he had remembered his promise to Ruth and procured some cough mixture.

"Yes," he replied, "the bottle's in the pocket of my overcoat. My cough has not been so troublesome to-day as it was during the night, but I remembered I had said I would get something for it, so I went into a chemist's in the city, and there I met some one whom I had not seen for more than twenty years; you have heard me mention him—Andrew Reed."

"Andrew Reed?" echoed Mrs. Wyndham. "Oh yes, I have often heard you mention him. You went to school with him, and afterwards you saw a good bit of him when he was a medical student. Quite a poor lad, was he not?"

"Yes. He was always one of the best fellows in the world, though, and the straightest. He was of humble birth; his father was only a small renting farmer in Devonshire, who had saved a few hundreds and had the sense to see that by educating his son and letting him follow his natural bent he was doing the best for him that he could. Reed's practising as a doctor in Yorkshire now, and his is the first practice in the place—I heard that some time ago. He has prospered in life and made money."

"Did he recognise you, father?" Ruth asked eagerly.

"Yes. He was in the chemist's shop having a prescription made up when my voice attracted his attention, and he spoke to me. I knew him the minute our eyes met. He seemed as glad to see me as I was to see him, and we went and had lunch together and a long talk about old times."

"What is he doing in London?" Mrs. Wyndham inquired.

"He is merely stopping here a few days, with relations of his wife's, on his way home from Devonshire. His mother still lives, and he has been to see her. I did not know he had a wife until to-day, but it appears he has been married sixteen years and has an only child, a girl, of whom he spoke very affectionately. I told him that, in one way, I am richer than he," Mr. Wyndham concluded with a smile.

"In what way, Clement?" asked his wife wonderingly.

"I have three daughters and two sons, my dear, and he has only that one girl."

The children laughed, whilst their mother smiled and looked pleased.

"Not but that he seemed very satisfied with his single chick," Mr. Wyndham proceeded; "one could tell that she is as the apple of his eye. You cannot imagine what a pleasure it was to me to renew my acquaintance with my old friend; he regrets, as I do, that we failed to keep in touch with each other after he left town, and he expressed a desire to see you, my dear Mary—" Mr. Wyndham smiled at his wife— "and our little flock."

"You did not suggest his coming here, I suppose?" Mrs. Wyndham said quickly.

"Yes, I did," Mr. Wyndham admitted; "I invited him to spend Sunday with us. It won't matter, will it? You needn't make any difference for Andrew Reed."

"But, Clement, we always have cold dinners on Sundays, and I expect your friend is accustomed to have everything very nice," expostulated Mrs. Wyndham, glancing expressively around the room.

"I daresay he is, nowadays," Mr. Wyndham answered, "but you must remember he was not born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He is a thorough man of the world, in the best sense of the term, and I should like you all to know him. I couldn't well ask such an old friend as he is to dine with me at an hotel or a restaurant when I've a home in London to invite him to."

"No, no," Mrs. Wyndham agreed, "only I thought, as he has got on in the world—but, there, he must just take us as he finds us!"