Page:Stubbs's Calendar or The Fatal Boots.djvu/85

Rh it, ma'am; and, permit me to say, that when I agreed to board you and my two sisters for eighty pounds a year, I did not know that you had other resources than those mentioned in my blessed father's will."

This I said to her because I hated the meanness of concealment, not because I lost by the bargain of boarding them, for the three poor things did not eat much more than sparrows: and I've often since calculated that I had a clear twenty pounds a year profit out of them.

Mamma and the girls looked quite astonished when I made the speech. "What does he mean?" said Lucy to Eliza.

Mamma repeated the question. "My beloved Robert, what concealment are you talking of?"

"I am talking of concealed property, ma'am," says I sternly.

"And do you—what—can you—do you really suppose that I have concealed—any of that blessed sa-a-a-aint's prop-op-op-operty?" screams out mamma. "Robert," says she—"Bob, my own darling boy—my