'You see, my dear, we have been rather straitened lately, and my health, you know, grows so uncertain, and, all things considered, I have been feeling very anxious about the girls.

So I wrote to your uncle William, and told him that I must positively have that money.

I must think of my own children before his.' The matter referred to was this.

The deceased Mr Milvain had a brother who was a struggling shopkeeper in a Midland town.

Some ten years ago, William Milvain, on the point of bankruptcy, had borrowed a hundred and seventy pounds from his brother in Wattleborough, and this debt was still unpaid; for on the death of Jasper's father repayment of the loan was impossible for William, and since then it had seemed hopeless that the sum would ever be recovered.