"To-morrow I will be ready for that."
"But why not to-day?" inquired one of the trustees. "We are anxious to get through with this unpleasant business."
"I said to-morrow," Mr. Morton replied, while a red spot burned upon his cheek.
The trustees looked at each other, and hesitated.
"Surely," said the debtor, "you cannot hesitate to let me have a single day in which to prepare my family for so painful a duty as that which is required of me."
"We should suppose," remarked one of the trustees, in reply, "that your family were already prepared for that."
The debtor looked the last speaker searchingly in the face for some moments, and then said, as if satisfied with the examination--
"Then you are afraid that I will make way, in the mean time, with some of my plate!"
"I did not say so, Mr. Morton. But, you know we are under oath to protect the interest of the creditors."
An indignant reply trembled on the lips of Morton, but he curbed his feelings with a strong effort.
"I am ready now," he said, after a few moments of hurried self-communion. "The sooner it is over the better."
Half an hour after he entered his house with the trustees, and sworn appraiser. He left them in the parlour below, while he held a brief but painful interview with his family.
"Do not distress yourself, dear father!" Constance said, laying her hand upon his shoulder. "We expected this, and have fully nerved ourselves for the trial."
"May he who watches over, and regards us all, bless you, my children!" the father said with emotion, and hurriedly left them.
A careful inventory of the costly furniture that adorned the parlours was first taken. The plate was then displayed, rich and beautiful, and valued; and then the trustees lifted their eyes to the wall--they were connoisseurs in the fine arts; at least one of them was, but a taste for the arts had, in his case, failed to soften his feelings. He looked at a picture much as a dealer in precious stones looks at a diamond, to determine its money-value.
"That is from Guido," he said, looking admiringly at a sweet picture, which had always been a favourite of Mr. Morton"s, "and it is worth a hundred dollars."
"Shall I put it down at that?" asked the appraiser, who had little experience in valuing pictures.
"Yes; put it down at one hundred. It will bring that under the hammer, any day," replied the connoisseur. "Ah, what have we here? A copy from Murillo"s "Good Shepherd." Isn"t that a lovely picture?
Worth a hundred and fifty, every cent. And here is "Our Saviour,"
from Da Vinci"s celebrated picture of the Last Supper; and a "Magdalen" from Correggio. You are a judge of pictures, I see, Mr.
Morton! But what is this?" he said, eyeing closely a large engraving, richly framed.
"A proof, as I live! from the only plate worth looking at of Raphael"s Madonna of St. Sixtus. I"ll give fifty dollars for that, myself."
The pictures named were all entered up by the appraiser, and then the group continued their examination.
"Here is a Sully," remarked the trustee above alluded to, pausing before Willie"s portrait.
"But that is a portrait," Mr. Morton said, advancing, while his heart leaped with a new and sudden fear.
"If it is, Mr. Morton, it is a valuable picture, worth every cent of two hundred dollars. We cannot pa.s.s that, Sir."
"What!" exclaimed Mr. Morton, "take my Willie"s portrait? O no, you cannot do that!"
"It is no doubt a hard case, Mr. Morton," said one of the trustees.
"But we must do our duty, however painful. That picture is a most beautiful one, and by a favourite artist, and will bring at least two hundred dollars. It is not a necessary article of household furniture, and is not covered by the law. We should be censured, and justly too, if we were to pa.s.s it."
For a few moments, Mr. Morton"s thoughts were so bewildered and his feelings so benumbed by the sudden and unexpected shock, that he could not rally his mind enough to decide what to say or how to act.
To have the unfeeling hands of creditors, under the sanction of the law, seize upon his lost Willie"s portrait, was to him so unexpected and sacrilegious a thing, that he could scarcely realize it, and he stood wrapt in painful, dreamy abstraction, until roused by the direction,
"Put it down at a hundred and fifty," given to the appraiser, by one of the trustees.
"Are your hearts made of iron?" he asked bitterly, roused at once into a distinct consciousness of what was transpiring.
"Be composed, Mr. Morton," was the cold, quiet reply.
"And thus might the executioner say to the victim he was torturing--_Be composed_. But surely, when I tell you that that picture is the likeness of my youngest child, now no more, you will not take it from us. To lose that, would break his mother"s heart.
Take all the rest, and I will not murmur. But in the name of humanity spare me the portrait of my angel boy."
There was a brief, cold, silent pause, and the trustees continued their investigations. Sick at heart, Mr. Morton turned from them and sought his family. The distressed, almost agonized expression of his countenance was noticed, as he came into the chamber where they had retired.
"Is it all over?" asked Mrs. Morton.
"Not yet," was the sad answer.
The mother and daughter knew how much their father prized his choice collection of pictures, and supposed that giving an inventory of them had produced the pain that he seemed to feel. Of the truth, they had not the most distant idea. For a few minutes he sat with them, and then, recovering in some degree, his self-possession, he returned and kept with the trustees, until everything in the house that could be taken, was valued. He closed the door after them, when they left, and again returned to his family.
"Have they gone?" asked Constance, in a low, almost whispering voice.
"Yes, my child, they have gone at last."
"And what have they left us?" inquired Mrs. Morton somewhat anxiously.
"Nothing but the barest necessaries for housekeeping."
"They did not take our carpets and--"
"Yes, Mary," said Mr. Morton interrupting her, "every article in the parlors has been set down as unnecessary."
"O, father!" exclaimed the eldest daughter, "can it be possible?"
"Yes, my child, it is possible. We are left poor, indeed. But for all that I would not care, if they had only left us Willie"s portrait!"
Instantly the mother and daughters rose to their feet, with blanched cheeks, and eyes staring wildly into the father"s face.
"O no, not Willie"s portrait, surely!" the mother at length said, mournfully. "We cannot give that up. It is of no comparative value to others, and is all in all to us."
"I plead with them to spare us that. But it was no use," Mr. Morton replied. "The tenderest ties in nature were nothing to them in comparison with a hundred and fifty dollars."
"But surely," urged Constance, "the law will protect us in the possession of the picture. Who ever heard of a portrait being seized upon by a creditor?"
"It is a cruel omission; but nevertheless, Constance, there is no law to protect us in keeping it."