The Adventurous Seven | Page 6

the sake of gaining time. The proposition was sufficiently staggering, but on the other hand it might be worth consideration.
"I am afraid that we must be a heavy expense to you now, sir, seeing that we have to be fed and clothed," replied Rupert, with a deference that was really soothing to Mr. Runciman, who smiled graciously and waved his hand as much as to say that the matter was too trifling to be considered.
"You will let us go, won't you, air, because we want to build the Empire?" burst out Billykins, thrusting himself in between his elders and looking so flushed and excited that Mr. Runciman, who had no son of his own, could not be so repressive as he felt he ought to have been.
"Eh, what? And how do you expect you are going to set about it, young man?" he demanded, while Billykins went suddenly red in the face, because Sylvia had tweaked his jacket, which was the signal that he was overstepping the mark.
"I don't know, but I expect we will find out when we get there. Don and I mostly find out how to do things, and Nealie says we are going to be the business men of the family. Rupert and Rumple have got the brains, but there is practical perseverance in us----"
The small boy came to a sudden pause, for Sylvia, fearing what he might say next, had dragged him into the background, leaving Nealie to speak.
"We should be very glad to go to Australia, if you please; for now that Aunt Judith is dead no one wants us here, and we might be a very great comfort to our father when he got used to having us." Her voice broke a little on the last words; she was remembering the letter which she had so innocently opened and read, and the wonder whether he would be quite glad to see them at first crept in to spoil her joy at the thought that perhaps Mr. Runciman was for once going to do the thing they wanted so badly.
Her words brought a frown to his face, and when he spoke his voice had an apologetic ring which sounded strangely in the ears of the seven.
"I am sorry that you should feel that no one wants you here. Of course Mrs. Runciman and my daughters have so many engagements that it is not easy for them to go as far as Beechleigh very often; but we have certainly tried to take care of you since your great-aunt passed away."
"You have been most kind," said Nealie hastily, divining in a vague fashion that she had somehow said something to hurt his feelings, which was certainly outside her intentions. "But we hate to be a continual burden upon our connections, and there seems no way in which we can earn money here."
"Don and I could keep pigs on the stubble fields, only Nealie won't let us. We could earn half a crown a week at it too," burst out Billykins, thrusting himself to the front like a jack-in-the-box and disappearing as suddenly, being again dragged back by Sylvia.
There was a troubled look on the face of Mr. Runciman as his gaze rested upon Nealie, who was the living image of her dead mother. There was a secret chamber in his heart that was tenanted by the mournful memory of a dead love. He had loved the mother of the seven, but she had passed him by to marry Dr. Plumstead, and so the secret chamber had held nothing but a shrine ever since, only it made him a little kinder to the motherless children than he otherwise might have been.
"It would be a tremendous expense to send you all such a long distance," he said, still speaking for the sake of gaining time, yet disposed to regard the proposal as a really practical way in which to solve the problem of their future.
"It could be done for about seventy pounds, I think, if we went steerage; and it is quite comfortable for people who do not mind roughing it, and as we have not been used to any sort of luxury, of course we shall not miss it," said Sylvia.
"I could not allow you to go as steerage passengers," replied Mr. Runciman.
"We would much rather go as steerage passengers than not go at all," murmured Nealie.
"I will think about it and let you know," he said, but with so much giving way in his tone that they burst into a chorus of imploring.
"Please, please decide now and write to tell Father that we are coming. We are quite ready to start by the next boat, and it is so lonely living at Beechleigh now that Aunt Judith is dead," pleaded Nealie, silencing the others with a