soon clear to all, and for awhile there was great distress of mind
among the people, for many miles round, for most of them had entrusted
all their savings of years to the Scudamores' bank. When affairs were
wound up, however, it was found that things were not quite so bad as
had been feared. Mr. Scudamore had a considerable capital employed
in the bank, and the sale of his handsome house and estate realized
a large sum, so that eventually every one received back the money
they had entrusted to the bank; but the whole of the capital and the
profits of years of successful enterprise had vanished, and it was
calculated by the executors that the swindler must have appropriated
at least 80,000_l._

For the first month after their father's death the boys stayed with
the doctor who had long attended the family and had treated all their
ailments since they were born. In the great loss of their father the
loss of their fortune affected them but little, except that they were
sorry to be obliged to leave Eton; for the interest of the little
fortune which their mother had brought at her marriage, and which was
all that now remained to them, would not have been sufficient to pay
for their expenses there, and indeed such an education would have been
out of place for two boys who had to make their own way in life. At
the end of this month it was arranged that they were to go to their
only existing relative, an elder sister of Mr. Scudamore. The boys had
never seen her, for she had not for many years been friends with her
brother.

The letter which she had written to the doctor, announcing her
willingness to receive them, made the boys laugh, although it did not
hold out prospects of a very pleasant future. "I am, of course," she
said, "prepared to do my duty. No one can say that I have ever failed