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FAR ABOVE RUBIES

A woman sharp and clever enough in her generation, she was yet no match, either in sharpness or cleverness, for Mr. Black. If she knew a few things about him, he "was up," so he phrased it, "to two or three of her moves," and could turn the tables on her, when she tried his temper, as is often the wise fashion of her sex, a little too much.

The very first morning she opened fire upon him, the promoter informed Arthur, he "knew what the old lady was up to."

This was the peculiarly diplomatic manner in which Miss Hope, finding that Heather inclined to do nothing, commenced her operations.

The time was breakfast; scene, the dining-room at Berrie Down, with all the windows open; actors, Miss Hope and Mr. Black: interested spectators, the family and visitors generally.

"Pray," began the spinster, coquetting, as she spoke, with a peach which might have been grown in Eden, it looked so fresh and tempting; "pray, Mr. Black, can you tell me of a good investment for a small sum of money?"

Across the table Mr. Black looked at her, with a merry twinkle in his eyes; then he answered,--

"Yes, the Three per Cents."

"But my friend would not be satisfied with three per cent.," said Miss Hope.

"A mortgage, or some good freehold estate, might suit her then," suggested Mr. Black.

"I did not say it was a lady, so far as I am aware," remarked Miss Hope.

"No; but I concluded no man would ask a lady friend to make such inquiries for him," explained her antagonist. "She might get four, or even four and a half, and still be safe enough."

"But what is four and a half?" observed Miss Hope.

"Four pounds ten shillings per cent. per annum," answered Mr. Black, at which reply Arthur laughed.

"You won't make much of him, aunt," he said; "you cannot get him to advise an unsafe investment."

For a moment Miss Hope turned towards her nephew, evidently meditating an attack on him. Changing her mind, however, she addressed herself to Mr. Black once more.

"But there is more surely than four and a half per cent. to be had now-a-days, is there not; in some of those great companies, for instance?"

"You are an authority in such matters?" she suggested.

"Not a better authority than Miss Hope," replied Mr. Black, gallantly.

"What do you mean; do you think I know anything about investments?" she asked.

"I have heard that either you or some friend of yours does," he answered. "I have heard of very good ventures you have made,--of shares sold in the nick of time, and bought wisely, and at a very low figure."

"I assure you, Mr. Black, you have been misinformed," said the spinster, eagerly; "all my money is sunk in a life annuity."

"Which, no doubt, ma'am, you purchased on as favourable terms as those shares in the Great Britain and Ireland Canal Company."

"It is not wise to be too sure of anything," Mr. Black answered. "I had nothing, as it happened, to do with the Great Britain and Ireland Canal Company. If I had, perhaps you might not have lost by your shares; but a man I know, a confoundedly clever fellow, got rid of his the day before the smash came, and it was he who told me you had got your fingers burnt. Your friend, Mr. Pembroke, did not advise you with his customary caution there, Miss Hope."

"I thought it was of business we were talking," interrupted the promoter, "of affairs which were strictly commercial! The moment any one goes on the market, Miss Hope, either personally or by deputy, that moment he or she becomes public property. I never pretended to be a gentleman; but I do not think I would go prying into my neighbour's secret concerns for all that, any more than you would do," he added, significantly.

Almost involuntarily Heather's eyes sought Miss Hope's face at this statement, and under Mrs. Dudley's look the spinster turned redder even than she had done at the conclusion of Mr. Black's speech.

"I am perfectly incapable of impertinent or undue meddling in any person's concerns," she said. "Thank God, curiosity is a feeling that I was born without."

"Then you ought to be sent to the South Kensington Museum," remarked Mr. Black.

"Don't you think, aunt, that is going a little too far?" inquired Arthur.

"Miss Hope only meant that she had no curiosity about indifferent subjects," put in Mrs. Black, as usual making matters worse by trying to mend them.

"Miss Hope meant no such thing," snapped that lady. "I meant precisely what I said; that I have no curiosity, and that I never had any."

"Not even to see unfinished pictures and statues in course of chiselling," suggested Mrs. Ormson.

"You dear Heather, as if you were a gossip!" exclaimed Bessie.

"That is just what I say about the country," remarked Mr. Black; "life stagnates here; you should come to London, Mrs. Dudley; come and bring the girls, and we will take you about. There are lots of rooms in Stanley Crescent crying out for some one to come and occupy them. Persuade your husband to give himself a holiday whenever the crops are in; you have never paid us a visit yet, and I call it mean."

"We should be only too delighted if you would come," murmured Mrs. Black.

"Not even to go abroad?" asked Mrs. Ormson.

"Not even to go abroad," answered Miss Hope, deliberately--an assertion which took every one so much by surprise, that no person disputed its truthfulness; not even Arthur, who, feeling his aunt's words were intended as a useful moral lesson for him, longed to argue the matter out with her, and say he should go to London, or stay at Berrie Down, or take a still longer journey if it pleased him to do so, without consulting any one in the matter.

"You would like greatly to have my nephew staying in Stanley Crescent?" Miss Hope said to Mrs. Black later on in the course of the same day.

"Take care what you are about with that man, Arthur," she entreated.

"My dear aunt, I am much obliged to you for your kindness, but I believe I can manage my own affairs," he returned.

"Heather, you must speak to Arthur," she then declared; "if you do not speak, you will one day repent your weakness."

"But I am afraid of vexing him," Mrs. Dudley objected.

"Vex, nonsense; better vex him than lose every sixpence you have in the world."

"Do you think my speaking likely to do any good?"

"It cannot do any harm;" and thus exhorted, Heather inquired,--

"Have you any intention, Arthur, of--of going into business?"

"Business," he repeated; "what in the world put such an idea as that into your mind?"

"You and Mr. Black are always talking together."

"And you object to our talking?"

"No; only I love Berrie Down, Arthur."

"Which my aunt thinks I am in danger of losing; is that it, Heather? No, I won't lose Berrie Down, nor beggar you and the children. Does that content you?"

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