Chapter I: "stepbrother Dick."

"You will have to be father, mother, and brother to the girls, Dick. It is a great charge, but you will not shirk it. I know what you are, dear boy, and now, more than ever, I thank God, who took my only son, that He left me you."

The speaker had not long to live, and she knew it. She had four girls to leave motherless, and she had been ten years a widow. He to whom she spoke was her stepson, Richard Maynard Whitmore, who was sitting by her bed and looking in her wan face with loving, troubled eyes. His answer was not long in coming. Holding the invalid's thin hand in a gentle, caressing clasp, the young man replied, "As you have been a true mother to me, so will I be to the girls all you say, as God shall enable me."

A beautiful glad light overspread Mrs. Whitmore's face as the words fell on her ear. Dick's honest eyes were turned towards her, and though he spoke quietly, his tone was solemn and earnest, as befitted the occasion and the responsibility he was taking upon himself.

"Kiss me, dear Dick."

Richard rose and bent his tall figure until his lips touched those of his stepmother. She made an effort to clasp her thin arms round his neck, and after kissing him again and again, she held him for a few moments in a close embrace. Thus was the compact sealed.

Mrs. Whitmore knew well what a noble nature was covered under Dick's quiet, undemonstrative manner. The few words he had just spoken were quite enough to remove every anxious thought from her mind—save one.

Even before they were spoken the mother had said to herself, "The girls will be safe so long as they are sheltered by Dick's roof. He will be a true guardian, and will watch over and guide them aright, if they will be guided. He is good and wise beyond his years, and so unselfish."

"The three will be manageable enough, for they love him. My only fear is for Gertrude, and I dread her influence over the rest."

It seemed strange and sad that at such a time Mrs. Whitmore's thoughts should be disturbed by anxiety about her eldest daughter, and that her whole trust should be placed on the only one of her husband's children who was not also her very own son.

It was evident that Richard Whitmore read a story of hidden trouble in his mother's face, for, after her arms released him, he noted that the glad look called forth by his assurance had faded, and given place to a different expression. There was something yet unsaid, and he asked her, gently, "What is it, dear mother?"

"You read me like a book almost, Dick. I have been hesitating whether to say any more or no, but it is due to your goodness that I should withhold no thought from you which has relation to your sisters. Indeed, I have no wish to do it. My anxiety is on Gertrude's account. She has never been like the rest, especially to you, and never treated you as she ought to have done since that miserable visit. When I am gone it may be that she will try to prejudice the younger ones, and that they will listen to her, and then—"

Tears began to flow down the wan cheeks, and the speaker was unable to continue.

"I know all, and I have no fear. We will not trouble ourselves about 'maybes,'" returned Richard, in a cheery, hopeful tone, though he was not wholly without forebodings on the same account.

"Do not think I have made my promise to you without asking for help to enable me to keep it. That is enough for to-day. As future days pass one by one into the present, I shall seek strength for each as it comes. Let this thought comfort you, dear mother, when you are inclined to remember how young I am to undertake such a responsibility. Say to yourself, 'Dick does not stand alone. His father's God is his God also, and trusting in Him for strength according to his day, he can never be desolate or in doubt as to the course he should take.'"

"May that God bless you abundantly, my dear boy!" replied Mrs. Whitmore, fervently. "As I lie here weak and helpless, I feel that if I had only you to thank Him for, my heart would be filled with gratitude. He took my only boy, but left me one of the best of sons in you. I cannot fret or trouble about the future. It seems to me that in the solemn last days of life a clearer understanding of our Father's dealings with us is vouchsafed, to make up for the fading away of earthly interests. I see how kindly I have been dealt with through ten years of widowhood, and how I have been spared till the youngest of the girls is past mere childhood, and you are grown old enough for them to look up to as brother, guardian, friend."

Richard answered by a few more loving words, and then, after tenderly kissing his stepmother, left her to rest.

Mrs. Whitmore might well think much of Dick, and he of her in return. She was the only mother he could remember, having become his father's second wife when the boy was barely three years old.

She had come to the home a fair young creature, who had, happily for herself and the child, been brought up in an atmosphere of love, and was ready to pour a whole wealth of affection upon little Dick.

From the very day that she entered Mr. Whitmore's house as his wife, she brightened the life of her tiny stepson in every possible way. She was so young herself—very little over twenty—and to Dick, who had been under the charge of a faithful but somewhat prim nurse, her lovely face was like that of an angel.

The loss of her first baby, the only boy born of this second marriage, drew the loving bonds between her husband's child and herself closer still. It was such a comfort to feel his little arms round her neck, to have him for her companion, and to hear his childish prattle as he coaxed her out into the garden and fields, and persuaded her to join again in his baby games, as she did before the little one came and went.

Dick was only six years old when Gertrude, the eldest of the girls, was born, so that there was no great difference between his age and theirs, and all seemed to belong to one family on both sides. A looker-on could not have distinguished which of the five was Mrs. Whitmore's own child, either when all were little ones, or when they were comparatively grown-up.

Before Mr. Whitmore brought his second wife home, he had wisely explained to her his position and that of Dick with regard to the property on which they lived.

"Most of it came with my wife," he said, "and will eventually go to the boy, though while I live two-thirds of the income from the estate will be mine. Until he is of age, the whole of it passes through my hands, though, of course, a liberal portion is to be expended on his maintenance and education. When Richard is twenty-one, he will have a third for his own absolute use and until my death, when all his mother's property will be his. As his future is thus amply provided for, all that I have shall be yours for life, if you survive me, and afterwards go to our children, if we have others beside Dick. It will not be much in comparison, but would keep you in a modest way."

Pretty Amy Christie had been accustomed to simple surroundings, and was willing to trust her future in the hands of Mr. Whitmore. She was transplanted to a luxurious home, but as she looked around her, from the first she accustomed herself to think, "We owe the greater part of the good things we enjoy to little Dick's mother, and they are really held in trust for the boy."

There was no envious feeling in Mrs. Whitmore's mind as she thought of this. On the contrary, she rejoiced that the boy whom she had been privileged to train was daily developing into a noble character: true, loving, brave, unselfish. A little too quiet if anything, save to those who had the key to his inmost heart; and perhaps even more than to the father whom he loved and reverenced, did Richard Whitmore reveal it to his stepmother.

He was only sixteen when his father died, and the four girls were mere children: Gertrude ten, Mina (short for Wilhelmina) eight, Josephine six, and Florence Mary, or Molly, as everybody called her, only four.

With Mr. Whitmore's death went a large portion of the income, to accumulate and make Dick richer still, when he should come of age. What the husband had the power to bequeath to his widow seemed a mere pittance in comparison with what had been spent on the household, though he had saved out of it and left a little nest-egg, in the shape of ready money thus accumulated, absolutely to his widow.

The father had faith in Dick, though he was but a lad of sixteen, and to him, he commended his still young stepmother and the girls.

The trustees consented that Dick's home should still be shared by them, and made a liberal allowance. The ready money alluded to helped to tide over the time until he came of age, so that the interval was passed without much change in the surroundings of Mrs. Whitmore and her children. Only there was one unfortunate incident, which helped to spoil the perfect unity which had hitherto subsisted in the little family.

When Gertrude was about seventeen, she paid a visit to the home of a schoolfellow who lived at no very great distance. Whilst there, and as the girls strolled in the sweet spring sunshine, exchanging confidences, Gertrude's friend began to talk to her of the home she had lately left.

"I think Mere Side is just the most charmingly-situated house, and altogether the loveliest spot I ever saw. I always envied you your home until I knew."

"Knew what?" asked Gertrude, turning sharply round with an expression of utter astonishment on her handsome face. It was reflected on that of her friend, Pauline Tindall, who had spoken without having an idea that she was trenching on forbidden ground.

"You must know what I mean, dear," she replied, "and surely you are not angry at me for alluding to it. I would not pain or annoy you for the world," and she clung coaxingly to Gertrude, who was a full head above her in height.

"I do not understand you. I was surprised, not angry, when you said those words, 'until I knew,' and I want to know the meaning of them also. Tell me, Pauline, if you are really my friend!"

"If! Oh, Gertrude, can you doubt me? I am and shall always be your true friend, I hope. It is impossible that you should not know already far more than I can tell. I was only thinking that if Mr. Richard—I should say Mr. Whitmore now, as he is the only gentleman in the family—were to marry, how sad it would be for you all. If I lived at Mere Side on the same terms, I should be haunted with a perpetual dread of receiving notice to gait, and should feel as if a sword were hanging over my head whenever my brother spoke to a girl."

Still there was a look of perplexity and bewilderment on Gertrude Whitmore's face, and at last it dawned on her friend's mind that facts which were known to all the country round must be unknown to her.

It was perfectly true. No outsider had ever spoken to these Whitmore girls about the difference between Dick's worldly circumstances and their own. Everybody knew that the main portion of the money and the whole of the estate had come by Dick's mother, and that Mr. Whitmore had only a life interest in these. Of course, all had belonged to the young man himself since he came of age, and that was two years ago, when Gertrude was fifteen.

And everybody took it for granted that what was so generally known outside was equally so to the young people who lived so comfortably with stepbrother Dick. It was of no use alluding to such matters. The girls were happy and well cared for, and Richard Whitmore was the best of sons to his charming stepmother, and of brothers to the quartet of bonnie lasses at Mere Side. No doubt they would marry in good time, or if he married, he would do something towards increasing the slender income of one to whom he gave a son's affection.

If outsiders failed to speak of the position, Richard Whitmore was still less likely to name it. It was this lad of sixteen, who, when his father died, had gone quietly to the trustees, that father's old friends, and pleaded with them for the largest allowance that they dared take the responsibility of granting during his minority. Not for himself, but that Mrs. Whitmore might not want any luxury to which she had been accustomed, or the girls feel that a needless shadow had fallen on their young lives.

It was Richard who had said to the mother, "Do not be afraid of spending from your own store. It will be replenished in due time," meaning when he should have legal power to do what he chose with his own. And, lastly, it was he who had persuaded Mrs. Whitmore to keep the girls in ignorance of what they owed to him.

"We are children of the same parents, for you are the only mother I can remember," he said to her. "Do not let them think that Fortune has made any difference in the shares she has severally allotted to us. Why should they know? I am not likely to marry for years and years to come, if ever, and what would my home be, without the girls and you?"

So it was Dick's doing that Gertrude first listened in such amazement to Pauline Tindall's sympathetic remarks, and then insisted on an explanation.

"Then, from what you tell me, I am to understand that my sisters and I are to a great extent dependent on Richard. That, but for him, we must live in some little poky place with one, or at most two servants, if indeed we could afford so much. That I, but for my—" she had always said brother before—"stepbrother's generosity—is that the right word, Pauline?—would have to go out as a governess, or companion, or something of the kind."

"I did not say so, dear Gertrude. I never dreamed of such a thing. I only alluded to what I thought you knew as well as myself. Mr. Richard is good and generous, splendidly generous. Everybody says so, and I should think that the very fact of your having no knowledge of what he has done, will show you what a delicate mind he must have."

There was a hard, set look on Gertrude's face as she answered, "True, Pauline, you said nothing of the going out as a governess, or the consequences which might follow if Richard Whitmore were to marry. But you showed me plainly enough that, were he to bring home a wife, there would no longer be room for the rest of us under his roof. The remainder of the blanks were easy to fill in, and my imagination did that quickly enough."

Again Pauline spoke soothingly and tenderly to her friend. She felt that she had unwittingly done mischief, and was distressed beyond measure at the impression produced on Gertrude. She pleaded again that she could not have imagined that she was touching on a forbidden subject, when it was one so well-known. That it was her own enthusiastic admiration for Mere Side, which had made her express what would be her feelings were she in Gertrude's place, at the very possibility of having to leave it.

Then she added, "Knowing how often you have spoken of your brother in such affectionate terms, and that he is honoured and respected by everyone, I thought you would love to know how his beautiful unselfishness is spoken of."

"I suppose I should appreciate it too in somebody else," replied Gertrude, trying to repress her angry feelings, or to prevent their being noticed. "But it has been a rude awakening for me. I have lived in a dream of comforts, luxuries, beautiful surroundings, to a share of which I thought I had as good a personal right as anyone who enjoyed them with me. I have been shaken out of my pleasant sleep to find that I can claim only a share in a mere pittance, and that I am a species of genteel pauper—a dependant on the charity of my stepbrother."

Poor Pauline! She attempted no further explanations. She was a little, tender, clinging creature, but withal an enthusiastic admirer of all that was generous or noble. Richard Whitmore's had seemed to her one of the most beautiful and unselfish of characters—a hero to be worshipped, though he was not externally suggestive of one.

Now she had done harm, both to Gertrude and to him. She was overwhelmed with distress, and, unable to think of anything else to say or do, she sat down and cried bitterly.

This was more than Gertrude bargained for when she used such harsh words, and now she found herself compelled to try and comfort Pauline.

"Dry your tears, you dear little thing," she said. "Pray do not take my hasty words for more than they are worth. Of course I was annoyed at first. Who would not be when they felt what they had looked on as firm ground crumbling away beneath their feet? It was a shock to me to hear such news for the first time, but no doubt Dick is the finest, dearest old darling in the world, and the best of brothers. Have I not cause to say so?"

"Oh, I am so glad you are not angry, and that you are taking things rightly, Gertrude. You make me quite frightened. But I understand. It was likely you should feel surprised, even angry, at the first look, as it were. Promise now that you will not repeat what I have said, but let all pass as if you had never heard it."

The childlike pleading tone and tearful eyes drew a smile from the stronger-minded girl. She put her arm caressingly round Pauline, and said, "I will promise not to say a word more about this matter until to-morrow morning, and then only to you. And you must promise that you will not repeat either my hasty expressions or anything that we have been talking about, until the same time."

Pauline promised gladly enough, and then retreated to her own room to try and remove the traces of tears, which were only too visible.

Gertrude walked slowly backwards and forwards in the grounds for some time before she returned to the house. Then the sound of the dressing bell reached her, and she went in to prepare for dinner. It was not often that she was betrayed into such an exhibition of feeling, and she was now angry at herself for not having shown more self-control. She wanted time to think over what she had heard, and it was for that purpose she had given to, and obtained from, Pauline the promise that, until the next day, no allusion should be made to the subject which had so agitated her.

For a girl of seventeen, Gertrude had no small amount of worldly wisdom. People said that Miss Whitmore had great individuality of character, she thought and decided so largely for herself, and often got her own way by dint of steady determination. And it was a remarkable fact that whilst each of the younger sisters had her pet name, and were Mina, Jo, and Molly, no one would ever have presumed to call the eldest Gerty.