Mrs Gaff endeavours fruitlessly to understand the Nature of Cash, Principal, and Interest.

At first, as I have said, poor Mrs Gaff was quite inconsolable at the bereavements she had sustained in the loss of her husband and son and brother. For a long time she refused to be comforted, or to allow her spirit to be soothed by the visits, (the “angel visits” as she styled them), of Lizzie Gordon, and the entrance of God’s Word into her heart.

Much of the violence of the good woman’s character was the result of training and example on an impulsive and sanguine, yet kindly spirit. She had loved Stephen and Billy with a true and ardent love, and she could not forgive herself for what she styled her “cruelty to the dear boy.” Neither could she prevail on herself to enjoy or touch a single penny of the money which ought, she said, to have been her husband’s.

Night after night would Mrs Gaff sit down by the cottage fireside to rest after her day of hard toll, and, making Tottie sit down on a stool at her feet, would take her head into her lap, and stroke the hair and the soft cheek gently with her big rough hand, while she discoursed of the good qualities of Stephen, and the bravery of her darling boy, to whom she had been such a cruel monster in days gone by.

Poor Tottie, being of a sympathetic nature, would pat her mother’s knee and weep. One evening while they were sitting thus she suddenly seemed to be struck with a new idea.

“Maybe, mother,” said she, “Daddy an’ Billy will come back. We’ve never hearn that they’s been drownded.”

“Tottie,” replied Mrs Gaff earnestly, “I’ve thoughten o’ that afore now.”

Little more was said, but from that night Mrs Gaff changed her manner and her practice. She set herself earnestly and doggedly to prepare for the return of her husband and child!

On the day that followed this radical change in her feelings and plans, Mrs Gaff received a visit from Haco Barepoles.

“How d’ye find yerself to-day, Mrs Gaff?” said the big skipper, seating himself carefully on a chair, at which he cast an earnest glance before sitting down.

This little touch of anxiety in reference to the chair was the result of many years of experience, which told him that his weight was too much for most ordinary chairs, unless they were in sound condition.

“Well and hearty,” replied Mrs Gaff, sitting down and seizing Tottie’s head, which she began to smooth. She always smoothed Tottie, if she were at hand, when she had nothing better to do.

“Heh!” exclaimed Haco, with a slight look of surprise. “Glad to hear it, lass. Nothin’ turned up, has there?”

“No, nothin’; but I’ve bin busy preparin’ for Stephen and Billy comin’ home, an’ that puts one in good spirits, you know.”

A shade of anxiety crossed Haco’s brow as he looked earnestly into the woman’s face, under the impression that grief had shaken her reason, but she returned his glance with such a calm self-possessed look that he felt reassured.

“I hope they’ll come, lass,” he said sadly; “what makes ye think they will?”

“I feel sure on it. I feel it here,” replied the woman, placing her hand on her breast. “Sweet Miss Lizzie Gordon and me prayed together that the Lord would send ’em home if it was His will, an’ ever since then the load’s bin off my heart.”

Haco shook his head for a moment, then nodded it, and said cheerily, “Well, I hope it may be so for your sake, lass. An’ what sort o’ preparations are ye goin’ to make?”

Mrs Gaff smiled as she rose, and silently went to a cupboard, which stood close to the Dutch clock with the horrified countenance, and took therefrom a tea-caddy, which she set on the table with peculiar emphasis. Tottie watched her with an expression of awe, for she had seen her mother weeping frequently over that tea-caddy, and believed that it must certainly contain something very dreadful.

“The preparations,” said Mrs Gaff, as she searched her pocket for the key of the box, “will depend on what I’m able to afford.”

“You’ll be able to afford a good deal, then, if all that’s reported be true, for I’m told ye’ve got ten thousand pounds.”

“Is that the sum?” asked Mrs Gaff, still searching for the key, which, like all other keys in like circumstances, seemed to have gone in for a game of hide-and-seek; “I’m sure I ought to know, for the lawyer took great pains to teach me that; ay, there ye are,” (to the key); “found ye at last. Now then, Haco, we’ll have a look at the book and see.”

To Tottie’s surprise and no small disappointment, the only object that came out of the mysterious tea-caddy was a small book, which Mrs Gaff, however, seemed to look upon with respect, and to handle as if she half-expected it would bite.

“There, that’s my banker’s book. You read off the figures, Haco, for I can’t. To be sure if I had wanted to know, Tottie could have told me, but I haven’t had the heart to look at it till to-day.”

“Ten thousand, an’ no mistake!” said Haco, looking at the figures with intense gravity.

“Now, then, the question is,” said Mrs Gaff, sitting down and again seizing Tottie’s head for stroking purposes, while she put the question with deep solemnity—“the question is, how long will that last?”

Haco was a good deal puzzled. He bit his thumb nail, and knit his shaggy brows for some time, and then said—

“Well, you know, that depends on how much you spend at a time. If you go for to spend a thousand pounds a day, now, it’ll just last ten days. If you spend a thousand pounds a year, it’ll last ten years. If you spend a thousand pounds in ten years, it’ll last a hundred years—d’ye see? It all depends on the spendin’. But, then, Mrs Gaff,” said the skipper remonstratively, “you mustn’t go for to live on the principal, you know.”

“What’s the principal?” demanded Mrs Gaff.

“Why, the whole sum; the money itself, you know.”

“D’ye suppose that I’m a born fool, Mr Barepoles, that I should try to live on the money itself? I never heerd on anybody bilin’ up money in a kettle an’ suppin’ goold soup, and I’m not a-goin’ for to try.”

With infinite difficulty, and much futile effort at illustration, did Haco explain to Mrs Gaff the difference between principal and interest; telling her to live on the latter, and never on any account to touch the former, unless she wished to “end her days in a work’us.”

&l............