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 UN IVLRSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
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 THE 
 
 GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND, 
 VOL. i.
 
 THE GREATEST HEIRESS 
 
 IN ENGLAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. OLIPHANT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 fje (Cfjrontcles of Catlingforo," 
 
 &c, &c. 
 
 " A lady richly left .... 
 An unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised ■. 
 Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
 But she may learn." — Merchant of Venice. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 L X I) N : 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 188<>. 
 
 his reserved.
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/greatestheiressi01olip
 
 £?3 
 
 to 
 
 CD 
 
 "^ 
 
 THE 
 
 GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 NO. 6 IN THE TERRACE. 
 
 A COUNTRY town, quiet, simple, and dull, 
 
 -£*- chiefly of old construction, but with a 
 
 few new streets and scattered villas of modern 
 
 flimsiness, a river flowing through it, dulled 
 
 r and stilled with the frost; trees visible in every 
 
 4 direction, blocking up the horizon and making 
 
 ^a background, though only with a confused 
 
 : anatomy of bare branches, to the red houses ; 
 
 
 not many people about the streets, and these 
 cold, subdued, only brightening a little with 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the idea that if the frost " held" there might be 
 skating to-morrow. On one side the High Street 
 trended down a slight slope towards the river, 
 on the other ran vaguely away into a delta of 
 small streets, which in their turn led to the 
 common, on the edge of which lay the new 
 district of Farafield. All towns it is said have 
 a tendency to stray and expand themselves to- 
 wards the west, and this is what had happened 
 here. The little new streets, roads, crescents, 
 and places, all strayed towards the setting sun. 
 The best and biggest of these, and at the same 
 time the furthest off of all, was the Terrace, a 
 somewhat gloomy row of houses, facing towards 
 the common, and commanding across the strip of 
 garden which kept them in dignified seclusion 
 from the road, a full view of the broken expanse 
 of gorse and heather over which the sunsets 
 played, affording to these monotonous windows 
 a daily spectacle far more splendid than any 
 official pomp. There were but twelve of these 
 houses, ambitiously built to look like one great 
 "Elizabethan mansion." Except one or two
 
 ; NO. 6 IX THE TERRACE. 3 
 
 large, old-fashioned, substaDtial houses in the 
 Market Place, these were the largest and 
 most pretentious dwellings in the town: the 
 proud occupants considered the pile as a very 
 fine specimen of modern domestic architec- 
 ture, and its gentility was undoubted. It 
 was the landlord's desire that nobody who 
 worked for his or her living should enter these 
 sacred precincts. It is difficult to keep so noble 
 a resolution in a country where so many occupa- 
 tions which are not conspicuous to the common 
 eye, live and grow ; but still it was an exalted 
 aim. 
 
 In this town there was a street, and in this 
 street there was a house, and in this house there 
 was a room — After this fairy-tale fashion we 
 may be permitted to begin this history. The 
 house which was called Xo. 6 in the Terrace, 
 was in no way remarkable externally among its 
 neighbours; but within the constitution of the 
 family was peculiar. The nominal master of 
 the house was a retired clerk of the highest 
 respectability, with his equally respectable wife. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 But it was well known that this excellent couple 
 existed (in the Terrace) merely as ministers to 
 the comfort of an old man who inhabited the 
 better part of the house, and whose convenience 
 was paramount over all its other arrangements. 
 There was a link of relationship, it was under- 
 stood, between the Fords and old Mr. Trevor, 
 and though there was no great disparity of 
 social condition between them, yet there was 
 the great practical difference that old Trevor 
 was very rich, and the Fords had no more 
 than sufficient for their homely wants — wants 
 much more humble than those of the ordinary 
 residents in the Terrace, who were the elite of 
 the town. This gave a tone of respect to their 
 intercourse on one side, and a kind of superiority 
 on the other. The Fords were of the opinion 
 that old Mr. Trevor had greatly the best of the 
 bargain. He had none of the troubles of a 
 house upon his shoulders, and he had all 
 its advantages. The domestic arrangements 
 which cost Mrs. Ford so much thought, cost him 
 nothing but money ; he had no care, no annoy-
 
 NO. 6 IX THE TERRACE. 5 
 
 ance about anything, neither taxes to pay nor 
 servants to look after ; and everything went on like 
 clockwork; his tastes were considered in every 
 way, and all things made subservient to him. 
 When coals or meat rose in value, or when one of 
 the three servants (each more troublesome than 
 the other, as it is the nature of maids to be) was 
 disagreeable, what did it matter to old Mr. 
 Trevor? And when that question arose about 
 the Borough rate, what had he to say to it ! No- 
 thing, absolutely nothing ! all this daily burden 
 was on the shoulders of Richard Ford and Susan 
 his wife ; whereas Mr. Trevor had nothing to do 
 but to put his hand into his pocket, to some 
 people the easiest exercise! He had the best 
 of everything, the chief rooms, and the most 
 unwearied attendance ; and not only for him 
 but for his two children, who were a still more 
 anxious charge, as Mrs. Ford expressed it, was 
 every good thing provided. Sometimes the ex- 
 cellent couple grumbled, and sometimes felt it 
 hard that being relations there should be so 
 much difference ; but on the whole both
 
 6 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 parties- were aware that their own comforts 
 profited by the conjunction, and the household 
 machinery worked smoothly, with as few jars 
 and as much harmony as is possible to 
 man. 
 
 At the time this history begins Mr. Trevor 
 was seated in the drawing-room, the best room 
 in the house. The Fords occupied the front 
 parlour below, where the furniture was moderate 
 and homely ; but all the skill of the upholsterer 
 had been displayed above. The room had two 
 long windows looking out over the common, not 
 at this moment a very cheerful prospect. There 
 was nothing outside but mist and dampness, 
 made more dismal by incipient frost, and full of 
 the sentiment of cold, a chill that went to your 
 heart. The prospect inside was not much 
 adapted to warm or cheer in such circum- 
 stances. The windows were cut down to the 
 floor, as is usual in suburban houses, and though 
 the draught had been shut out as much as pos- 
 sible by list and stamped leather, and by the 
 large rugs of silky white fur which lay in front
 
 NO. 6 IX THE TERRACE. 7 
 
 of each window, yet there were still little im- 
 pertinent whiffs of air blowing about. And the 
 moral effect was still more chilly. It was not 
 an artistic room according to the fashion of the 
 present day, or one indeed in which any taste to 
 speak of had been shown. The walls were white 
 with gilded ornaments, the curtains w 7 ere blue, 
 the carpet showed large bouquets of flowers upon 
 a light ground. There were large prints, very 
 large, and not very interesting, royal marriages 
 and christenings hanging, one in the centre of 
 each wall. Thus it will be seen there was 
 nothing to distinguish it from a hundred other 
 unremarkable and unattractive apartments of the 
 ordinary British kind. A large folding screen 
 was disposed round the door to keep out the 
 draught, and the folding doors which led into 
 Mr. Trevor's bedroom behind, were veiled 
 with curtains of the same blue as those of the 
 windows. The old man was seated by a large 
 fire in a comfortable easy-chair with a writing- 
 table within reach of his hand. Mr. Trevor was 
 not a man of imposing presence ; he was little
 
 8 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and very thin, wrapped in a dark coloured dress- 
 ing-gown with a high collar in which he seemed 
 pilloried, and a brown wig which imparted a 
 very aged juvenility to his small and wrinkled 
 face. Grey hairs harmonize and soften wrinkles ; 
 but the smooth chin and bright brown locks of 
 this little old man gave him a somewhat elfish 
 appearance, something like that of an elderly bird. 
 He sat with a pen in his hand making notes upon 
 a large document opened out upon the writing- 
 table, and his action and a little unconscious 
 chirp to which he gave vent now and then, 
 increased his resemblance to an alert sparrow. 
 And indeed it might have been a claw which 
 Mr. Trevor was holding up with a quill in it, 
 and his little air of triumphant success and self- 
 content, his head held on one side, and the 
 dab he made from time to time upon his paper 
 gave him very much the air of a sparrow. He 
 had laid down his " Times" which hung in a much 
 crumpled condition, like a table-cover, over a 
 small round table on his other hand, in order 
 to make this sudden note whatever it might be,
 
 NO. b IN THE TERRACE. U 
 
 and as he made it he chuckled. The paper on 
 which he wrote was large blue paper like that 
 employed by lawyers, and had an air of formality 
 and importance. It was smoothed out over a 
 big blotting-book, not long enough quite to con- 
 tain it, and had a dog's-ear at the lower corner, 
 which proved a frequent recurrence on the part of 
 the writer to this favourite manuscript. When 
 he had written all that occurred to him, Mr. 
 Trevor put down his pen and resumed the 
 •' Times ;" but the interest of the previous occupa- 
 tion carried the day even over that invaluable news- 
 paper, which is as good as a trade to idle persons. 
 He had not gone down a column before he 
 paused, rested his paper on his knee, and 
 chuckled again. Then he leant over the writing- 
 table and read the note he had made, which 
 was tolerably long ; then with his " Times" in 
 his hand, rose and went to the door, losing him- 
 self behind the screen. There he stood for a 
 moment, wrapping his dressing-gown around his 
 thin legs with a shiver, and called for " Ford ! 
 Ford !" Presently a reply came, muffled by the
 
 10 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 distance, from the room below. "I've put in 
 another clause," the old man called over the 
 stair. 
 
 Ford below opened the door of his parlour to 
 listen. 
 
 "Bless me! have you indeed, Mr. Trevor?" 
 he replied, with less enthusiasm. 
 
 " Come up, come up, and you shall hear it," 
 said the other, fidgetting with excitement. Then 
 he returned to his easy-chair, laughing to him- 
 self under his breath. He bent over the docu- 
 ment and read it again. " They'll keep her 
 straight, they'll keep her straight among them," 
 he said to himself. " She'll be clever if she goes 
 wrong after all this," and then he sat down again, 
 chuckling and tucking the " Times" like a napkin 
 over his knees. 
 
 All this time he had not been alone ; but his 
 companion was not one who claimed much notice. 
 There was spread before the fire a large milky 
 white rug, like those that stopped the draught 
 from the windows ; and upon this, half buried in 
 the fur, lay a small boy in knickerbockers, ab-
 
 NO. 6 IN THE TERRACE. 11 
 
 sorbed in a book. The child was between seven 
 and eight ; he was dressed in a blue velveteen 
 suit, somewhat shabby. He was small even for 
 his small age. His face was a little pale face, 
 with fair and rather lanky locks. Sometimes he 
 would lie on his back with his book supported 
 upon his chest— sometimes the other way, with 
 the book on the rug, and his head a little raised, 
 leaning on his hands. This was his attitude 
 at present ; he took no notice of his father, nor 
 his father of him ; he was a kind of postscript to 
 old Mr. Trevor's life ; no one had expected him, 
 no one had wanted him ; when he chose to come 
 into the world it was at his own risk, so to 
 speak. He had been permitted to live, and had 
 been called John, a good, safe, serviceable name, 
 but no special encouragement of any other kind 
 had been given to him, to pursue the thankless 
 path of existence. Nevertheless, little Jock had 
 done so in a dogged sort of way. He had been 
 delicate, but he had always gone on all the same. 
 Lately he had found the best of all allies and 
 defenders in his sister, but no one else took much
 
 12 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 notice of him, nor he of them ; and his father 
 and he paid no attention to each other. Mr. 
 Trevor took care not to stumble over him, 
 being thoroughly accustomed to his presence ; 
 and as for little Jock, he never stirred. He 
 was on the rug in the body, but in soul he was 
 in the forest of Ardennes, or tilting on the Spanish 
 roads with Don Quixote. It was wonderful, 
 some people thought, that such a baby should 
 read at all, or reading that he should have any 
 books above the level of those that are written 
 in three syllables. But the child had no baby 
 books, and therefore he took what he could get. 
 Are not the baby books a snare and delusion, 
 keeping children out of their inheritance % How 
 can they understand Shakespeare you will say % 
 and I suppose Jock did not understand ; yet that 
 great person pervaded the very air about this 
 little person, so that it glowed and shone. Only 
 his shoulders raised a little way out of the 
 white silky fluff of the rug, betrayed the im- 
 movable creature, and his book was almost lost 
 altogether in it. There he lay, thinking nothing
 
 NO. 6 IN THE TERRACE. 13 
 
 of how his life was to run, or of the influences 
 which might be developing round him. There 
 was not a piece of furniture in the room which 
 counted for less with Mr. Trevor than little 
 Jock. 
 
 Ford was a long time coming ; he had some 
 business of his own in hand, which, though not 
 half so important, was on the whole more in- 
 teresting to him than Mr. Trevor's business ; and 
 then he had a little argumentation with Mrs. 
 Ford before he could get away. 
 
 "What is it now?" Mrs. Ford said fretfully, 
 "what does he make such a fuss about? Sure 
 there's nothing so very wonderful in making a 
 will. I'd say, 'I leave all I have to my two 
 children,' and there would be an end of it. He 
 makes as much of it as if it was a book he was 
 writing. Many a book has been written with 
 less fuss." 
 
 " My dear," said Ford, " there are many peo- 
 ple who can write books and cannot make a 
 will ; indeed the most of them have no need to, 
 if all we hear is true. And you don't give a
 
 14 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 a thought to the interests — I may say the colossal 
 interests — that are involved." 
 
 "Pooh !" said Mrs. Ford, " I think of our own 
 interests if you please, which are all I care for. 
 Is he going to leave us anj'thing? that is what I 
 want to know." 
 
 " I am sorry you are so mercenary, my 
 dear." 
 
 " I am not mercenary, Mr. Ford ; but I like 
 to see an inch before me, and know what is to 
 become of me. He's failing fast, anyone can 
 see that ; and if we're left with the lease of a big 
 house on our hands — " This was the danger 
 that afflicted Mrs. Ford at all moments, and 
 robbed her of her peace. 
 
 " Stuff !" Ford said. He knew a great 
 deal about the important literary composition 
 which the old gentleman was concocting ; but 
 " he was not at liberty" to mention what he 
 knew. Sometimes it made him laugh secretly 
 within himself, to think how differently she would 
 talk if she too knew. But then that is the case 
 in most matters. He went upstairs at last
 
 NO. 6 IN THE TERRACE. 15 
 
 deliberately, counting (as it seemed) every step, 
 while Mr. Trevor sat impatient in his great 
 chair, full of the enthusiasm of his own work, 
 and thinking every minute an hour till he could 
 show his friend, who was entirely in his confi- 
 dence, who almost seemed like his collaborateur, 
 the last stroke he had made. It was the magnum 
 opus of Mr. Trevor's life, the work by which he 
 hoped to be remembered, to attain that immor- 
 tality in the recollection of other men which all 
 men desire. For a long time he had been work- 
 ing at it, a little bit at a time as it occurred to 
 him. He was not like the thriftless literary 
 persons to whom Ford compared him, who write 
 whether they have anything to say or not, 
 whether the fountain is welling forth freely or 
 has to be pumped up drop by drop. Mr. Trevor 
 composed his great work under the most favour- 
 able conditions. He had it by him constantly, 
 night and day, and when something occurred 
 to him, if it were in the middle of the night, he 
 would get up and wrap his dressing-gown round 
 his shrunken person and put it down. He did
 
 16 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 not forget it either sleeping or waking. It was 
 a resource for his imagination, an occupation for 
 his life. Also it was likely to prove a consider- 
 able source of occupation to others after his 
 death, if nobody stepped in to lick it into 
 shape. 
 
 When he; heard Ford's step on the stairs he 
 began to chuckle again, already enjoying the 
 surprise and admiration which he felt his last 
 new idea must call forth. Ford was a very 
 good literary confidant. He would find fault 
 with a trifle now and then, which made his general 
 approbation all the more valuable, as showing 
 that there was discrimination in it. Mr. Trevor 
 put away the " Times " from his knees, and drew 
 the blotting-book with its precious contents a little 
 nearer. He waited with as much impatience as 
 a lover would show for the appearance of his 
 love. And he had time to take off his spectacles, 
 clean them carefully, rubbing them with his 
 handkerchief, and put them on again with great 
 deliberation before Ford, after very carefully 
 and audibly closing the door behind him, ap-
 
 NO. 6 IN THE TERRACE. 17 
 
 peared at last on the inner side of the screen 
 which kept out the draught, that draught which 
 rushed up the narrow ravine of the staircase as 
 up an Alpine couloir white with snow. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 18 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 
 
 JOHN TREVOR had been a schoolmaster for 
 the greater part of his life. How he ac- 
 quired so well sounding a name nobody knew. 
 He had no relations, he always said, in the male 
 line, and his friends on the mother's side were 
 people of undistinguished surnames. And for 
 the first fifty years of his life he had maintained 
 a very even tenor of existence, always respect- 
 able, always a man who kept his engagements, 
 paid his way, gave his entire attention, as his 
 circulars said, to the pupils confided to his care; 
 but even in his schoolmastership there was 
 nothing of a remarkable character. After pass- 
 ing many obscure years as an usher he attained
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 19 
 
 to an academy of his own, in which a sound 
 religious and commercial education was ensured, 
 as the same circular informed the parents and 
 guardians of Farafield, by the employment of 
 most competent masters for all the branches 
 included in the course, and by his own unre- 
 mitting care. But often the masters at Mr. 
 Trevor's academy were represented solely by 
 himself, and the number of his pupils never 
 embarrassed or overweighted him. The good man, 
 however, worked his way all the same ; he kept 
 afloat, which so many find it impossible to do. If 
 the number of scholars diminished he lived harder, 
 when it increased he laid by a little. He was 
 never extravagant, never forgot that his occupa- 
 tion was a precarious one, and thus— turning out a 
 few creditable arithmeticians to fill up the places in 
 the little " offices " of Farafield, the solicitor's, the 
 auctioneer's, the big builder's, and even in the 
 better shops, where they were the best of 
 cashiers, never wrong in a total — he lived on 
 from year to year. His house was but a dingy 
 one, with a large room for his pupils, and two 
 
 C 2
 
 20 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 upstairs, shabby enough, in which he lived ; but, 
 by dint of sheer continuance and respectability, 
 John Trevor, by the time he was fifty, was as 
 much respected in Farafield as a man leading 
 such a virtuous, colourless, joyless, unblamable 
 existence has a right to be. 
 
 But at fifty a curious circumstance happened. 
 John Trevor married. To say that he fell in 
 love would perhaps scarcely represent the case. 
 He had a friend who had been in India and all 
 over the world, and who came home to Fara- 
 field with a liver-complaint, and a great deal of 
 money, some people said. Trevor at first did 
 not believe very much in the money. " I have 
 enough to live upon," his friend said ; and what 
 more was necessary? No one knew very well 
 how the money had been made — though 
 that it was honestly acquired there was no 
 doubt. He had been a clerk in an office in Fara- 
 field first, then because of his good conduct, 
 which everybody had full faith in, and his 
 business qualities (at which everybody laughed), 
 he was sent to London by his employer, and 
 received into an office there, from which he was
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. '21 
 
 sent to India, coming home with this fortune, 
 but with worn-out health, to his native place. 
 "Fortune? you can call it a fortune if you like. 
 It is enough to live on," John Trevor repeated, 
 " that is all I know about it. To be sure that 
 is a fortune, for to have enough for your old 
 days, and not to be compelled to work, what 
 could a man desire more ! But poor Rainy will 
 not enjoy it long," his old schoolfellow added 
 regretfully. Rainy was older by five or six 
 years than John Trevor ; but fifty-six does not 
 seem old when one is drawing near that age, though 
 it is a respectable antiquity to youth. Rainy's 
 sister had been a hard-working woman too ; she 
 had been a governess, and then had kept a school ; 
 then looked after the children of a widowed 
 brother; and during her whole life had dis- 
 charged the duties of the supernumerary woman 
 in a large family, taking care of everybody who 
 wanted taking care of. When her brother re- 
 turned to Farafield she had come to him to be 
 his companion and nurse. He gave her a 
 very nice home, everybody said, with much
 
 22 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 admiration . of the brother's kindness and the 
 sister's good luck. They lived in Swallow 
 Street, in one of the old houses, which were 
 warmer and better built than the new ones, and 
 kept two maids, and had everything comfortable, 
 if not handsome, about them. When poor Rainy 
 died, Miss Rainy had a great deal of business 
 to do which she did not at all understand. She 
 had to refer to John Trevor perpetually in the 
 first week or two, and she was not young any 
 longer, nor ambitious, the good soul, and nobody 
 had been so kind to her brother as John, and 
 they had known each other all their lives. It 
 came about thus quite naturally that they mar- 
 ried. To be sure there were a great many 
 people who said that Trevor married Miss Rainy 
 for her money, as if poor old John at fifty had 
 been able to have his choice of all the lovely 
 young maidens of the district. But this was 
 not the case ; neither was it for love they 
 married. They married for mutual support and 
 company, not a bad motive after all. If there 
 had been no money in the case, they would have
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 23 
 
 contented themselves in their loneliness ; but as 
 she had a house and an independence, and he an 
 occupation, they "felt justified," he said to all 
 inquirers, in taking a • step which otherwise they 
 might not have contemplated. The consequences 
 however were not at all such as they contem- 
 plated. Mrs. Trevor began, too late, with the 
 energy of a workman who has no time to lose, 
 the hard trade of a mother. She had one baby 
 after another at headlong speed, losing them 
 almost as soon as they were born, and losing 
 her own health and tranquillity in the process. 
 For some half dozen years the poor soul was 
 either ill or in mourning. And at the end of 
 that period she died. Poor Trevor saved his 
 little Lucy out of the wreck, that was all ; there 
 were five or six little mounds in the churchyard 
 beside Mrs. Trevor's longer one, and so her kind 
 old-maidenly existence was over ; for before she 
 married she had been universally acknowledged, 
 even by her closest friends, to be an old maid. 
 
 It was not till Mrs. Trevor was dead that it 
 became fully known in Farafield that it was no
 
 24 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 humble competency that had been left to her 
 by her brother, but " an immense fortune/' 
 Neither she nor her husband had known it till 
 long after their marriage. Rainy had been a 
 very clever business-man, though his townsfolk 
 all laughed at the idea, and some of his specula- 
 tions which had been all but forgotten, turned 
 out at last to be real mines of gold. When it 
 was known what a large, what a fabulous fortune 
 it was, all Rainy' s kindred and connections were 
 roused as one man. They crowded round Trevor, 
 most of them demanding their share, almost all 
 of them fully believing that he had known from 
 the beginning how matters stood, and had mar- 
 ried (being so much in request, poor old John !) 
 solely on this inducement; but some of them on 
 the other hand, showed their admiration by 
 leaving their own little bits of fortune to Lucy, 
 already so liberally endowed. Both of these 
 effects were natural enough. Trevor held his 
 own bravely against them all. Rainy had left 
 his money to his sister ; he knew best who de- 
 served it ; and it was not for him (Trevor) to an-
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 25 
 
 nul or allow to be annulled his brother-in-law's 
 wishes, especially now that Lucilla Kainy (poor 
 thing !) had a child to inherit all that belonged 
 to her. He was not illiberal, however, though 
 he was unyielding on the point of law and his 
 child's rights, and between him and the town- 
 clerk, who was a person of great influence and 
 much trusted in by the surrounding population, 
 the crowd of discontented relations were silenced. 
 As for the others, those who insisted upon 
 leaving their money to Lucy on the old and 
 always popular principle, that to those that have 
 shall be given, Trevor allowed them to do w T hat 
 seemed to them good ; and by this treatment it 
 came to pass that the fortune of Lucy acquired 
 several additions. "Money draws money," the 
 proverb says. Thus this man of fifty-six, with 
 all the restrained and economical habits of a 
 life-time passed in laborious endeavours to make 
 the two ends meet, found himself at the latter 
 end of his life with a great fortune and a mother- 
 less baby on his hands. The position in both 
 ways was very strange to him. He gave up the
 
 26 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 school, generously bestowing the goodwill, the 
 furniture, and the remaining pupils on young 
 Philip Rainy, the son of a cousin of his wife. 
 He would not give away his child's money ; but 
 he hoped, he said, that he would always be ready 
 to serve an old friend with that which was his 
 own. And then he gave himself up to the charge 
 of Lucy's fortune. One thing that was to the 
 credit of John Trevor, all Farafield said, was 
 that he never gave himself any airs or com- 
 mitted any extravagances. He lived on the 
 same income with which his wife and he had 
 begun life, before the great windfalls came which 
 made their little daughter one of the richest 
 heiresses in England. He might have bought 
 himself a great house, set up a carriage, tried 
 to make his way into society. But he did none 
 of these things. He lived on in the old way, 
 without fuss or show, nursed Lucy's fortune 
 and rolled it into ever-increasing bulk like a 
 snowball, and had Lucy nursed as best he might 
 with no woman to help him. How it was that 
 in this respectable and right-minded career there
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 27 
 
 should have occurred the interval of folly in 
 which little Jock came into the world, who can 
 tell ? The second Mrs. Trevor was a good woman 
 enough, and had acted for some years as his 
 housekeeper and the superintendant of Lucy's 
 health and comfort — a comely person too, which 
 perhaps had something to do with it. But no- 
 body ever dwelt upon this moment of aberration 
 in old Trevor's life, for his second wife died as 
 his first wife had done, and there would have 
 been an end of the incident but for little Jock. 
 And nobody made much account of him. 
 
 When the second Mrs. Trevor died, he gave 
 up housekeeping. Perhaps he was afraid of 
 other risks that might attend hiin in the same 
 way. "When a man is a widower for the 
 second time it is impossible to say what Blue- 
 beard career he may not rush into. In this as 
 in so many other things, il ny a que le premier 
 pas qui coute. After that there is no telling to 
 what lengths you may go. So Trevor wisely 
 withdrew from all hazards. He looked about 
 him carefully, and fixed upon Mrs. Ford, who
 
 28 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 was a cousin of his first wife. Ford was just 
 then beginning to sigh and make comparisons 
 between his own lot and that of his employer, 
 who was his contemporary, and had just retired 
 with, if not a fortune, at least a competency. 
 " Whereas I shall have to slave on to the end," 
 Ford said. One evening, however, his wife 
 came out to meet him in high excitement to tell 
 him what had happened. 
 
 "He will buy the lease for us," she said, 
 " and set us up, and then he will take our lodg- 
 ings. I never should have thought old Trevor 
 would be so liberal ; but I suppose it is for poor 
 Lucilla's sake." 
 
 And next day they went and inspected No. 6 
 in the Terrace. Mr. and Mrs. Ford felt that it 
 was a solemn moment in their career; they had 
 no children, and they liked to be comfortable, 
 but such a piece of grandeur as a house in the 
 Terrace had never come within the range of 
 their hopes ; and Mrs. Ford liked the idea of the 
 cook, and the housemaid, and the parlourmaid. 
 Thus the bargain was made; and though the
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 29 
 
 Fords had not found it quite so delightful as it 
 appeared at first, yet the experiment was on 
 the whole a successful one. The household got 
 on as well as it was possible for such a com- 
 posite household to do. Sometimes a maid 
 would be saucy, and give Mrs. Ford to under- 
 stand as she knew very well who was the real 
 master ; and sometimes Mr. Trevor would make 
 himself disagreeable and find fault with the eggs, 
 or complain of the tea. But barring these ruf- 
 flings of the rose leaves, all went very well with 
 the house. When she was not thinking of her 
 housekeeping, Mrs. Ford kept a convenient little 
 fund of misery on hand, which she could draw 
 upon at the shortest notice, as to the position 
 in which she and her husband would be left 
 when Mr. Trevor died. Mr. Trevor was now 
 seventy, so that the fear was not unnatural, and- 
 she was a woman full of anxieties who liked to 
 have one within reach. Ford was above all 
 this ; he knew that they were not to be left with 
 the lease of the house in the Terrace and nothing 
 more to trust to. For he had become Mr. Tre-
 
 30 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 vor's confidant. It is not so touching a relation- 
 ship as that which exists at the theatre between 
 the first and second ladies, the heroine in white 
 satin and the confidant in muslin ; but it is 
 doubtful whether Tilburina ever made revela- 
 tions more exciting than those over which these 
 two old men wagged their beards— or rather their 
 smooth old chins, well shaven every morning ; 
 for at their age and in their condition of life 
 beards were still unknown. 
 
 Mr. Trevor was sixty-five when the idea of 
 making his will occurred to him first. Not that 
 he had left Lucy's fortune in any doubt up to 
 that moment. A brief and concise little docu- 
 ment existed in his lawyer's hands, putting her 
 rights entirely beyond question ; but it was 
 years after the making of this first will that the 
 idea occurred to him of shaping out Lucy's life 
 for her, and settling the course of years after he 
 should have himself passed from the conduct of 
 affairs. He was a man who had lived a very 
 matter-of-fact life ; but John Trevor was 
 not a man without imagination. Even in
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 31 
 
 the days when he had least time for such 
 vanities, there had been gleams of fancy about 
 him, and he had always been fond of entering 
 into the circumstances of his pupils, and giving 
 them his advice. They all knew that to have 
 his advice asked was a thing that pleased him. 
 And the management of a great fortune 
 excites the mind and draws forth the im- 
 agination. He had to throw himself into all 
 the combinations of speculative money-making, 
 the romance of shares and coupons, and had 
 acquired a sort of divination, a spirit of prophecy, 
 a power of seeing what was about to pay or not 
 to pay. Some men have this power by nature, 
 but few acquire it ; and no doubt it had lain 
 dormant in John Trevor all the years during 
 which, having no money to invest, he had not 
 cared to exercise his faculties as to the best in- 
 vestment. When, however, he had made many 
 very successful coups, and eluded many stum- 
 bles, and steered triumphantly through some 
 dangers, a sense of his own cleverness and power 
 stole into his heart. He felt that he was a man
 
 32 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 with great powers of administration, and instincts 
 which it was a thousand pities not to make use 
 of; and it suddenly came into his mind one even- 
 ing, when he had just added several thousand 
 pounds to Lucy's fortune by a very successful 
 and clever operation, that he might exercise these 
 powers in a still more effectual way. Ah ! if 
 Lucy's fortune had been a poor little trumpery 
 bit of a fortune, not enough for the girl to live 
 on, it would not have increased like this, it would 
 never have doubled itself, as old Trevor's money 
 did ! Even Providence seemed in the compact, and 
 gave the advantage to the heiress, just as the richer 
 people of the Rainy kindred did, who gave her their 
 money because she had so much already. But this 
 is a digression. As Mr. Trevor thought over the 
 whole question — and naturally Lucy's fortune, 
 which was his chief occupation, was also the thing 
 that took up most of his thoughts — he could not 
 but feel a vivid regret that it would be impossible 
 to outlive his own ending, and see how the money 
 throve in Lucy's hands. This seems a whimsical re- 
 gret, but it is not an unnatural one. Could we only
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 33 
 
 Keep a share of what is going on, could we but be 
 sure of seeing our ideas carried out, and assisting 
 at our ow T n dying and buying, and all that would 
 follow after, death would be a much less dismal 
 matter. To be sure, in most cases the penalty of 
 this post-mortem spectatorship would be that ."ve 
 should not see our ideas carried out at all. But 
 this was not what Mr. Trevor looked forward to. 
 He would have been quite content to give up his 
 share in the world, if he could only have kept an 
 eye on the course of events afterwards, and re- 
 tained some power of suggesting, at least, what 
 ought to be done. But even under the most 
 favourable view, the hereafter for which we hope, 
 was not likely, Mr. Trevor felt, to permit any 
 active intervention of the disembodied spirit in 
 the matter of stock or shares. And it was a 
 painful check to him to feel that in a few years, 
 at the most, Lucy's property and herself would 
 be deprived of the invaluable guidance which his 
 own experience and intelligence could give. It 
 was while this regret was heavy upon him that 
 the idea of making a will suddenly occurred to 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 him — not the ordinary sort of will, a thing which, 
 as already indicated, was made long ago, but a 
 potential and living instrument, by which out of 
 his grave he would still be able to look after the 
 affairs which had cost him so much trouble, and 
 which had so prospered in his hands. The idea 
 stirred him with the liveliest thrill of pleasure. He 
 began the document the very next day, after lay- 
 ing in a stock of paper, large blue folio, lined and 
 crackling, that the very outward form might be 
 absolutely correct. And it was a very remark- 
 able document ; it was the romance, the poem of 
 John Trevor's life. Sitting by himself among 
 his coupons and account-books, he had evolved 
 out of his own consciousness, bit by bit, the ideal 
 of a millionaire— nay of a female millionaire — 
 of an heiress, not in her usual aspect as the prey 
 of fortune-hunters, pursued for love, not of her- 
 self, but of her money. The sentimental side of 
 the question did not touch old Trevor at all. He 
 thought of his daughter from a very different 
 point of view. If he ever reflected upon a 
 possible husband for her, it was with great
 
 OLD JOHX TREVOR. 35 
 
 impatience and distaste of the idea. He would 
 rather, if he could, have settled for her that she 
 should never marry. He wanted her to be her- 
 self, not anybody's wife. All his calculations 
 were for her as she was, Lucy Trevor, not for 
 Mrs. So-and-so. It seemed to him that the 
 woman who would take up his sketch of exist- 
 ence, and carry it out. would be something much 
 more worth thinking of than a married lady of 
 the ordinary level. She would be a very impor- 
 tant person indeed, in her father's sketch of her, 
 making what he intended to be a very fine use of 
 her money, and living for that end like a princess. 
 He did not cut off auy portion of her duties, 
 because she was a woman ; indeed he thought no 
 more of that fact than in so far as it was this which 
 gave him his chief certainty of being able to 
 mould her, and make her life what he wished. He 
 would not, probably, have thought it worth his 
 while to take so much trouble had she been a 
 boy ; he would not have had the same faith in 
 her, nor the same feeling about her position. It 
 would have been more a matter of course, not so 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 interesting to the fancy. Perhaps a girl, in all 
 cases, answers the purpose of an ideal better than 
 a boy does. Old Trevor did not think much 
 about the question of sex, but instinctively felt 
 that the girl was what he wanted, and it would 
 be impossible to conceive an exercise of the im- 
 agination more exciting, more interesting. It 
 was as near like creating a human being as any- 
 thing could be. Of the character of Lucy — in the 
 flesh, a slim and quiet girl of sixteen — her father 
 knew not very much ; but the Lucy who, day by 
 day, developed more and more in the will became 
 a personage very distinct to him. The manner 
 in which she was to conduct herself in all the 
 difficulties she might meet, was the subject of his 
 continual thoughts : until at last it seemed to 
 the old man that he saw her as in a mirror mov- 
 ing along through the difficulties and perplexities 
 of her life in which his own position would 
 enable him to accompany her and help her with 
 his advice— rather than that he was actually in- 
 venting the entire course of her experience for 
 her.
 
 OLD JOHN TREVOR. 37 
 
 This was the subject upon which Ford was Mr.' 
 Trevor's confidant. He could not have lived all 
 alone in this imaginary world ; he had to consult 
 some one, to tell some one of all the developments 
 of his imagination as he traced his heiress 
 through her life. And Ford, you may be sure, 
 liked to know every particular, and was pleased 
 to have a hand in the guidance of so rich a person. 
 and to help to decide how so much money was to 
 be spent. It made him feel as if he were rich 
 himself. He made a very judicious confidant. 
 He agreed in all Mr. Trevor's ideas in the greater 
 matters, and differed in trifles, just enough to 
 show the independence -of his judgment ; and as 
 it happened, there was something particularly 
 interesting to Ford in the chapter of Lucy's 
 future life at which they had now arrived.
 
 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE WILL. 
 
 " T THINK I have got it now, Ford, I think I 
 -1- have got it now," the old man said, rubbing 
 his hands. " But it has given me a great deal of 
 trouble. Get yourself a chair, and sit down. I 
 want you to hear how Fve put it. I think, 
 though 1 don't want to be conceited, that this 
 time I have hit upon the. very thing. Sit down, 
 Ford, and give me your advice." 
 
 Ford found himself a chair, and put it in front 
 of the fire. His feet were close to little Jock on 
 the hearth-rug, but neither did he pay the least 
 attention to little Jock, any more than if he had 
 been a little dog half buried in the fur. The
 
 THE WILL 39 
 
 child moved now and then, as his position became 
 fatiguing. He changed now an elbow, now the 
 hand with which he held his book, and sometimes 
 fluttered the pages as he turned them ; but these 
 little movements were like the falling of the ashes 
 from the grate, or the little flickers of the 
 flames, and no one took any notice. Jock kept 
 on reading his Shakespeare, wholly absorbed in 
 it : yet as in a dream heard them talking, and 
 remembered afterwards, as children do, what they 
 had said. 
 
 " Listen !" said Mr. Trevor. He was so eager 
 to read that he had taken his MS. into his 
 hands before his confidant was ready to hear, and 
 waited, clearing his throat while Ford took his 
 seat. Then without a pause, raising his hand to 
 command attention, he began : 
 
 " In respect to the future residence of my 
 daughter Lucy, up to the moment of her coming of 
 age, I desire that her time should be divided between 
 two homes which I have selected for her. It is 
 my wish that she should pass the first six 
 months of every year in the house and under
 
 40 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the care of Lad} 7 Randolph, Park Street, 
 London ." 
 
 Here Ford interrupted with an exclamation of 
 astonishment. " Lady Randolph !" he said. 
 
 Trevor paused, and uttered his usual chuckle, 
 but with a still livelier note of pleasure in it. 
 " Ah !" he said. " Lady Randolph, that surprises 
 you, Ford. We haven't many titles among us, 
 have we ? but she's a relation of poor Lucilla's 
 all the same ; or at least she says so," he added 
 with another chuckle. " There is nothing like 
 money for opening people's eyes." 
 
 " A relation of Lucilla's !" Ford's amazement 
 was not more genuine than the impression of 
 awe made upon him by the name. "I never 
 knew the Rainy s had any rich relations. I 
 suppose you mean Sir Thomas Randolph 
 at the Hall, the lord of the manor, he 
 that was Member for the county when I first 
 came here— the present Sir Thomas's uncle — 
 the " 
 
 " That will do," said the old man. " It's not 
 Sir Thomas, but it's his wife, or his widow, to
 
 THE WILL. 41 
 
 be exact. She says she is a relation — no, a con- 
 nection of Lucilla's — and she ought to know best. 
 She has made me an offer to take charge of 
 Lucy, and introduce her, as she calls it. I've 
 been of use to my Lady Randolph in the way 
 of business, and she wants to be of use to me. 
 I don't ask, for my. part, if it's altogether disin- 
 terested. It appears there was a Randolph that 
 married beneath him ; I can't tell you how long 
 ago. My Lady," said old Trevor dryly, " would 
 not break her heart, perhaps, if another Randolph 
 married beneath him, and into the same family 
 too." 
 
 " But," said Ford, " that would be no reason 
 for putting Lucy in her hands — a poor lamb in 
 the way of the wolf." 
 
 " One wolf is not a bad thing to keep off 
 others ; besides, my good fellow, I've taken 
 every precaution. Wait till you see," and he 
 resumed his manuscript, with again a little pre- 
 paratory clearing of his throat. 
 
 "The latter part of the year it is my wish 
 that Lucy should spend in the house which has
 
 42 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 already been her home for some years, under the 
 charge of her other relations, Richard Ford and 
 Susan, his wife, who have been her fast friends 
 siuce ever she can recollect, and to whom for 
 this purpose I hereby give and bequeath the said 
 house, No. 6 in the Terrace, in the parish of 
 Farafield, in the hundred of " 
 
 " Stop a bit !" said Ford feebly ; he was over- 
 come by his feelings. " ' Her fast friends,' " he 
 repeated, "that's just what we are. We've loved 
 her like our own, that's what we've always done, 
 Susan and me. And as for Susan, many's the 
 time she has said, ' Supposing anything was to 
 happen, or any change to occur, what should 
 we do without Lucy % It would be like losing 
 a child of our own.' " 
 
 " Then you approve !" Trevor said. He liked 
 to receive the full expression of the gratitude 
 which was his due. 
 
 " Approve !" said Ford. When a man with- 
 out any natural dignity to speak of, is moved 
 tearfully, the effect is sometimes less pathetic 
 than ludicrous; the good man did all but cry.
 
 THE WILL. 43 
 
 " It isn't the property, Mr. Trevor, it's the trust," 
 he said, with a restrained sob. " But one thing 
 I'll promise, it shan't be a trust betrayed. We'll 
 watch over her night and day. There shall 
 be no wolf come near her while she's with Susan 
 and me." 
 
 " In moderation ! in moderation !" said the 
 old man, waving his hand. " I don't want her 
 to be watched night and day ; something must 
 be left to Lucy herself." 
 
 " Ah !" said Ford, drawing a long breath. He 
 had the air of a man who was ready to patrol 
 under his ward's window with a pair of pistols. 
 " Lucy has a great deal of sense, but to expose 
 a girl to the wiles of a set of fortune-hunters 
 is what I would never do — and with that 
 worldly-minded old woman. Ah ! Mr. Trevor, 
 you're too kind, you're too kind. Lady Ran- 
 dolph is not one that would step out of her own 
 sphere for nothing. It isn't any desire she has 
 to be kind to you." 
 
 " Her own sphere," said said Mr. Trevor. 
 " Money levels all spheres. And Lucy is an
 
 44 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 heiress, which makes her equal to a prince of 
 the blood. But," he added with a chuckle, snap- 
 ping his fingers, " that for the fortune-hunters ! 
 I've put bolt and bar between them and their 
 prey. It's all done in black and white, and 
 I don't know who can go against it. Listen, 
 Ford. 
 
 "It is further my wish, and I hereby stipu- 
 late that my said daughter, Lucy, shall contract 
 no marriage up to the age hereinafter mentioned 
 without the consent of the following parties, 
 who will consider themselves as a sort of com- 
 mittee for the disposal of her hand, and whom 
 I hereby appoint and constitute her guardians, 
 so far as this subject is concerned ; it being 
 fully understood that this appointment does not 
 confer any power or authority over her pecuniary 
 concerns. The committee which I thus charge 
 with the arrangement of her marriage is to 
 consist of the three persons above mentioned, 
 to wit, Dame Elena Randolph, Richard Ford, 
 and Susan Ford, his wife, with the following 
 assessors added : — Robert Rushton, Esq., town-
 
 THE WILL. 45 
 
 clerk of Farafield, my old friend ; the Rev. William 
 Williamson, of the Congregational Chapel, my 
 pastor ; and Mrs. Maria Stone, schoolmistress, of 
 the same place * 
 
 "But, Mr. Trevor!" Ford ejaculated with a 
 gasp. The paragraph he had just listened to 
 took away his breath. 
 
 " Well ? Out with your objections ; let us 
 hear them," said old Trevor, turning upon him, 
 brisk, and lively, and ready for war. 
 
 " Objections ! yes, I cannot deny it, I 
 have objections," said Ford hesitating. "Mr. 
 Trevor, you know better than I do, you that 
 have had such quantities of money passing 
 through your hands ; but " 
 
 "Out with it," said Trevor; he rubbed his 
 hands. It was an amusement the more to him 
 to have his arrangements questioned. 
 
 " You can't have taken everything into con- 
 sideration. Six people — six, all so different. If 
 she has to get all their consents, she will never 
 marry at all." 
 
 " And no great harm done either," said old
 
 46 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Trevor briefly, " if that is all. Why should she 
 marry? A woman who is poor, who wants 
 somebody to work for her, that is comprehen- 
 sible ; but a woman with a lot of money, there 
 is no reason why she shouldn't stay as she is. 
 What should she get married for ?" 
 
 Ford scratched his head ; he did not quite 
 make it out. This was a challenge to all his 
 convictions. It touched, he felt, the very 
 first prerogative of man. Where were all true 
 foundations of primal supremacy and authority to 
 go to, if it were once set up as a rule that 
 marriage was no longer necessary to woman- 
 kind? 
 
 "It's always a good thing for a woman to 
 marry," he said hoarsely. Many a radical 
 opinion he had heard from his lodger, but never 
 anything so sweeping as this. 
 
 " Ah ! you think so," said old Trevor. " There 
 was poor Lucilla, to go no further. She 
 might have been alive yet, and enjoying 
 her good fortune, if she had not married 
 me."
 
 THE WILL. 47 
 
 This disturbed still more the man of orthodox 
 ideas; he could do nothing but stare at the 
 old revolutionary. What might he not say 
 next? 
 
 " I suppose," he said, after a while, " poor 
 Lucilla would never have hesitated ; she was a 
 woman who never considered her own comfort, 
 in comparison with doing her duty." 
 
 " Her duty, poor soul ! how was it her duty to 
 marry me? Poor thing, I've always been very 
 sorry for her," said Trevor, " Women have hard 
 times in this world. But a girl with a great 
 fortune, she may be kept out of it." Here he 
 paused, while his companion sat opposite to him, 
 his very mouth open with amazement. It was in- 
 deed more than amazement, it was consternation 
 which filled the honest mind of Richard Ford. 
 He did not know what to think of this ; was it 
 a new phase of Radicalism worse than any that 
 had gone before? He would have said it was 
 Popery if he had not known how far from any 
 ideas of that description his old friend was. 
 While he sat thus half stupefied with astonish-
 
 48 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 ment, old Trevor took up his pen again hastily. 
 " Now I think of it," he said, " Lucy belongs to 
 the country, I don't hold much with the Church, 
 but the Church should have a hand in it. I'll 
 add the Rector to the committee. That will be 
 only a proper respect. 
 
 " The Rector !" said Ford, pale with wonder, 
 " and Mr. Williamson at the chapel, and Mr. 
 Rushton, and Mrs. Stone, and me ! " 
 
 " You forget Lady Randolph, " said old Trevor 
 with a chuckle, " that's exactly as it ought to be, 
 all classes represented, the right thing for a girl in 
 Lucy's position. To tell the truth," he added, 
 laying down his pen, " I don't know that there 
 ever was a girl in Lucy's position before. It's a 
 very fine positiou, and I hope she's been brought 
 up to feel all the responsibilities. I don't want 
 to brag of myself; but given an unusual situation 
 like hers, and I think I've hit the right thing for 
 it. When you are born a great lady that's 
 different; but a girl with the greatest fortune 
 in England, proceeding out of the lower 
 classes — "
 
 THE WILL. 49 
 
 " I don't see," said Ford, aggrieved, " that we 
 need call ourselves the lower classes ; the middle 
 — that is about what it is — the middle class — 
 the strength of the country." 
 
 "Bosh!" said Trevor; "she will goto Lady 
 Randolph's, and there she will see fine people, and 
 no doubt she'll be courted. There is nobody like 
 them for knowing the value of money ; and then 
 she will come to you, Dick Ford, where she 
 will see nobody, or else a few young clerks and 
 that sort." 
 
 " I assure you," said Ford solemnly, " I will 
 take care that she shall see no one here ; 
 not a man shall enter the house, not a crea- 
 ture come near her, while she is under my 
 care." 
 
 " That will be lively for Lucy," said the old 
 man, "you numscull ! if she never sees anyone 
 how is she to make a choice." 
 
 " Mr. Trevor," said Ford with a voice so 
 
 » 
 
 solemn and serious that it trembled, " you would 
 not wish your heiress to make a choice among 
 the young clerks? Whom, you say," he added 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE RICHEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 after a moment in a tone of offence, " she will 
 meet here." 
 
 " She is not my heiress, you stupid fellow. 
 She is Lucilla's heiress, poor Rainy's heiress ; 
 what was he but a young clerk ? Why shouldn't 
 she if she likes marry into her own class ? That's 
 your snobbishness, Ford. You will find nothing 
 of that in me. If she likes a man who is in 
 the same rank of life as Rainy was when he 
 began to make his fortune, or as I was (when 
 I was that age) why let her marry him in 
 heaven's name and be happy — that is," said 
 old Trevor chuckling, " if she can get her guar- 
 dians to consent." 
 
 " Mr. Trevor," said Ford hurriedly, with the 
 tremulousness of real feeling, " I must protest, 
 I must really protest. I am very conscious of 
 the great kindness you are showing to us ; but I 
 cannot sit quiet and see poor Lucy doomed to 
 such a fate. She will never get all her guar- 
 dians to consent. Put it into one person's hands, 
 whom you please, but for goodness' sake don't 
 leave the poor thing to fight with half-a-dozen ;
 
 THE WILL. 51 
 
 the end will be that she will never be married at 
 all." 
 
 "And that won't kill her," said Trevor, 
 " do you think I want her to marry ? Not 
 a bit, not a bit. ' She is better if she so 
 abide.' Don't you know who said that? And 
 I agree with St. Paul, whatever you may 
 do." 
 
 Now the idea of not agreeing with St. Paul 
 was terrible to Ford ; it scandalised him utterly : 
 for he was a Low Churchman, and much devoted 
 to the writer of the Epistles. 
 
 " There never could be any question on that 
 point," he said, " if you ask me whether I be- 
 lieve in my Bible, Mr. Trevor ! but I cannot 
 pretend that I understand that passage. There 
 is more in it, I make bold to say, than meets 
 the eye. There's a type in it, or a similitude. 
 I am not a learned man, I can't tell you what 
 it is in the original, but there's more in it than 
 we think." 
 
 Old Trevor laughed — he was quite as staunch 
 a believer as his friend : but being a Congrega-
 
 52 THE RICHEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tionalist, he was naturally a little more at his 
 
 ease on such subjects than even the lowest of 
 
 Churchmen. He was not shocked by the idea 
 
 that it might be possible not to agree with St. 
 
 Paul, and he was not so sure of the hidden 
 
 meaning. 
 
 " It is quite enough for me as it stands," he 
 
 said, " and as for Lucy's marriage — " 
 
 Here there was an interruption that startled 
 these old conspirators. Little Jocky, who had 
 been lying as still as a mouse at their feet, with 
 no movement except that of turning a leaf of 
 his book, now began to stir. They had for- 
 gotten his very existence, as they often did. 
 He had not been paying much attention to them, 
 but probably he had heard other sounds more 
 interesting to him, which they on the other 
 hand had taken no notice of. At this stage he 
 suddenly jumped up on his feet like a little 
 acrobat, startling them greatly. He was not 
 at all unlike an acrobat with his long slim 
 pliable limbs, and his faded suit of blue velve- 
 teen, a little short in the arms, and white in
 
 THE WILL. 53 
 
 the seams. He got up with a bound, like a 
 thing on springs, immediately under Mr. Ford's 
 nose, who was much discomfited by the sudden 
 movement. It was a thing that had happened 
 before, but Mr. Ford had confessed that it was 
 not a thing to which he could accustom himself. 
 He was not used to children, and he was 
 nervous ; little Jock's jump made him jump 
 too. 
 
 "What is it? What is the matter?" he 
 cried. 
 
 But just then the door opened softly behind 
 the screen, and a soft voice said, " I have 
 come home, papa, I have come to take Jock for 
 his walk. Do you want anything ?" 
 
 "Not that I know of, my dear, not that I 
 know of; except yourself, and I shall have you 
 by and bye/' said the old man, his countenance 
 expanding. She was not visible behind the high 
 screen, but her voice seemed to throw a new 
 element, something of softness and comfort into 
 the air. 
 
 " At tea, papa. Come, Jock," said the voice,
 
 54 THE RICHEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and the little fellow was gone almost before the 
 words were said. The two old men sat quite 
 silent, and listened to the steps going down the 
 stairs. It was not an unusual incident, but it is 
 scarcely possible not to feel an uneasy sensation 
 when you have been discussing, much more 
 deciding, the fate of another, and suddenly that 
 other looks in and interrupts your secret combi- 
 nations by the sound of an innocent and affec- 
 tionate voice. Such unconsciousness is more 
 trying to a conspirator than any suspicion 
 of his motives. Even when it is a private con- 
 sultation between a father and mother on the 
 expediency of sending a child to school, with 
 what compunctions the sudden appearance of 
 the unconscious victim overwhelms them! Old 
 Trevor himself was moved by it, though he was 
 not a likely subject for penitence. 
 
 " She hasn't much notion what we're settling," 
 he said. " Poor little Lucy, I wonder if it's a 
 good thing for a bit of a girl to have such a fate 
 before her. But it is a fine position— a fine 
 position ; not many have such a chance, and I
 
 THE WILL. 55 
 
 hope I've bred her up to understand what it is." 
 "Poor child," Ford breathed, in a sigh 
 which was not uniningled with personal feeling, 
 for notwithstanding the substantial advantages 
 promised to him, and the gratifying character 
 of the trust conferred, there already began to 
 appear before the good man, not too confident in 
 his own firmness or force of character, a crowd 
 of difficulties to come. How would he be able 
 to resist if a fine lady like Lady Randolph took 
 him in hand ? And how would Susan stand out 
 against cajoling. He sighed, beginning to fore- 
 see that it would not be unmixed happiness to 
 be Lucy's guardian even for six months in the 
 year. But Lucy's appearance, or rather Lucy's 
 voice, had disturbed the sitting effectually. Mr. 
 Trevor folded up his blue manuscript, and put 
 it back into the blotting-book, and he lifted the 
 " Times " from the little table on which it had 
 been spread out, and once more arranged it on 
 his knees. 
 
 "We'll go into further detail," he said, 
 * another time. I'll give you the help of all my
 
 56 THE RICHEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 lights, Dick Ford. You'll want them to steer 
 your way clear, and you can tell Susan there 
 shan't be any want of money. That is what 
 she'll think of first." 
 
 " I hope, Mr. Trevor, that you don't think 
 money is the only thing we think of, either 
 Susan or me." 
 
 " It is a very important thing," said the old 
 man. " I have been poor, and now I am rich, 
 and it isn't a matter that will let itself be kept 
 in the background. But you shall have plenty 
 of money, tell Susan so, and for other things you 
 must do your best." 
 
 " I hope we'll do that in any case," Ford said 
 devoutly, and he went downstairs with nervous 
 solemnity, holding his head very high. He was 
 very conscientious even in the smallest matters, 
 and it may be supposed that this tremendous 
 call upon him, as soon as he began to realise 
 it, went to the very depths of that conscience 
 which was alert and anxious in the minutest 
 affairs. Old Trevor watched him disappear be- 
 hind the screen, waited till the door had audibly
 
 THE WILL. ,57 
 
 closed behind him, then with a chuckling laugh 
 resumed his newspaper. 
 
 " I've given him something to think about," he 
 said, with a grin of mischievous satisfaction to 
 himself.
 
 58 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 
 
 FROM the two old men and their consulta- 
 tions it was a relief, even in that chilly 
 and dismal day, to get outside into the free air, 
 though it was heavy with the chill of moisture 
 turning into frost. It was not a cheerful world 
 outside. The sky was the colour of lead, and 
 hung low in one uniform tint of dulness over 
 the wet world, with all its wetness just on the 
 point of congealing. The common stretched out 
 its low green broken lines and brown divisions 
 of path to touch the limited horizon. Mrs. 
 Stone's school, the big white house which stood 
 on the north side, had a sort of halo of mist hang-
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 59 
 
 ing round it, and everything that moved moved 
 drearily, as unable to contend againt the depres- 
 sion in the air. But little Jock Trevor was 
 impervious to that depression ; it was the moment 
 of all the twenty-four hours in which he was 
 happy. Though he had lain as still on the rug 
 as if there was no quicksilver at all in his little 
 veins, he could scarcely stand quietly now to have 
 his little greatcoat put on, which his sister did 
 with great care. She was seventeen, a staid 
 little person, with much composure of manners, 
 dressed in a grey walking-dress, trimmed with 
 grey fur, very neat, comfortable., and sensible, 
 but not quite becoming to Lucy, who was of 
 that kind of fair complexion which tends towards 
 greyness ; fair hair, with no colour in it, 
 and a face more pale than rosy. Ill- 
 natured people said of her that she was all the 
 same colour, hair, cheeks, and eyes— which was 
 not true, and yet so far true as to make the 
 grey dress the least favourable envelope that 
 could have been chosen. There was no irregu- 
 larity of any kind about her appearance ; all
 
 60 THE RICHEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 was exact, the very impersonation of neatness; 
 a ribbon awry, an irregularity of line anywhere, 
 would have been a relief, but no such relief was 
 afforded to the spectator. Whoever might be 
 found fault with for untidiness in Mrs. Stone* 
 establishment, it never was Lucy ; her collars 
 were always spotless ; her ribbons always neatly 
 tied ; her dress, the very perfection of good 
 order and completeness. She put on her 
 brother's little coat, and buttoned it to the last 
 button, though he was dancing all the time with 
 impatience ; then enveloped his throat with a 
 warm woollen scarf, and tucked in the ends. 
 " Now your gloves, Jocky," she said, and she 
 would not move till he had dragged these 
 articles on, and had them buttoned in their turn. 
 " What does it matter if you are two minutes 
 earlier or later," she said, " you silly little Jock ; 
 far better to have them buttoned before you 
 go out than to struggle with them all the way. 
 Now have you got your handkerchief, and has 
 your hat been brushed properly? Well," Lucy 
 added, surveying him with mingled satisfaction
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 61 
 
 in the result and reluctance to allow it to be 
 complete, " now we may go." 
 
 If she had not held him by the hand, there is 
 no telling what caracoling Jock might have 
 burst into by way of exhausting the first out- 
 burst of exhilaration. The contact with the 
 fresh air, though it was not anything very lively 
 in the way of air, moved all the childhood in 
 his veins. He strained Lucy's arm, as a hound 
 strains at a leash, jumping about her as they 
 went on. Almost her staid steps were beguiled 
 out of their usual soft maidenly measure by the 
 gambols of the little fellow. 
 
 " Let's have a run to the gate," he said. " Oh, 
 Lucy, come, run me to the gate," and he 
 dragged at her hand to get loose from its 
 hold. But, when he escaped, Jock did not care 
 to run alone. He came back to her, out of 
 breath. 
 
 " I wish I could have a real run— just once," 
 he said with a sigh ; then brightening up, " or 
 a wrestling like Shakespeare — I'll tell you who 
 I'd like to be, Lucy, I'd like to be Orlando
 
 62 THE RICHEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 when he had just killed that big bully of a 
 man " 
 
 " Jock ! you wouldn't like to kill anyone, I 
 hope." 
 
 "Oh, shouldn't I!" cried the boy; "just to 
 see him go down, and turn over on his face, and 
 clench his hands. Do they always do that, I 
 wonder ? You see them in the pictures all with 
 their fists clenched, clawing at the ground. 
 Well," he added with magnanimity, " he needn't 
 quite die, you know; I'd like him only to be 
 badly hurt, as bad as if he were killed, and 
 then to get better. I daresay," said the child, 
 " Charles got better, you know, after Orlando 
 threw him. It isn't said that he was regularly 
 killed." 
 
 "Is it a pretty story you've been reading, 
 dear?" said Lucy sweetly, altogether ignorant 
 of Orlando. And she was not ashamed of her 
 ignorance, nor did Jock know that she had any 
 reason to be ashamed. 
 
 "That's the best bit," he said impartially. 
 "The rest is mostly about girls. It was the
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 63 
 
 Duke's wrestler, you know, a big beast like — 
 oh, I don't know anybody so big— a drayman," 
 said Jock, as a big waggon lumbered by, laden 
 with barrels, with one of those huge specimens 
 of humanity (and beer) moving along like a 
 clumsy tower by its side. " Like him ; and 
 Orlando was quite young, you know, not so very 
 big — like me, when I am grown up." 
 
 " You don't know what you will be when you 
 are grown up, you silly little boy. Perhaps you 
 will never grow up at all," said Lucy, some- 
 what against her conscience improving the 
 occasion. 
 
 Jock stood for a moment with wide open eyes. 
 Then resumed. 
 
 u I shan't be big or fat, like that fellow. 
 When I am about seventeen, or perhaps twenty- 
 two, and never taught to box or anything. I 
 would have gone in at him," cried Jack, throw- 
 ing out his poor arm, with a very tightly- 
 clenched woollen glove at the end of it, " just 
 like Orlando, just like this; and down he'd go 
 like, like " But imagination did not serve
 
 64 THE RICHEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 him in this particular. " Like Charles did," he 
 concluded, with a dropping of his voice, which 
 betrayed a consciousness of the failure, not in 
 grammar, but in force of metaphor. Jock's 
 experience did not furnish any parallel in- 
 cident. 
 
 "You must never fight when you grow up," 
 said Lucy. " Gentlemen never do ; except when 
 they are soldiers, and have to go and fight for the 
 Queen." 
 
 "Does the Queen want to be fighted for?" said 
 Jock. "If any fellow was to bully her or hit 
 her " 
 
 " Oh !" cried Lucy horrified, " nobody would 
 do that; but people sometimes go against the 
 country, Jock, and then the people that are 
 fighting for England are said to be fighting for 
 the Queen." 
 
 Jock's mind, however, went astray in the 
 midst of this discourse. There passed the pair 
 in the road a very captivating little figure — a 
 small boy, much smaller even than Jock, with long 
 fair locks streaming down his shoulders, in the
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 65 
 
 most coquettish of dresses, mounted upon a 
 beautiful cream-coloured pony, as tiny as its 
 rider. What child could pass this little eques- 
 trian and not gaze after him ? The children 
 sighed out of admiration and envy when they 
 saw him, for he was a very well-known figure 
 about Farafield ; but the elders shook their heads 
 and said, " Poor child F Why should the old 
 people say, " Poor child F and the young ones 
 regard him with such admiring eyes? It was 
 little Gerald Rid out, the son of the Circus pro- 
 prietor. Xobody was better known. As he rode 
 along, the most daring little rider, on his pretty 
 little Arab, which was as pretty as himself, with 
 his long flowing curls waving, there could have 
 been no such attractive advertisement. The 
 Circus travelled for a great part of the year, but 
 its home was in Farafield, and everybody knew 
 little Gerald. Jock fixed his glistening eyes 
 upon him from the moment of his appearance — 
 eyes that shone with pleasure and sympathy, 
 and that wistful longing to be as beautiful and 
 happy, which is not envy. There was nothing of 
 VOL. I. f
 
 66 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the more hateful sentiment in little Jock's heart, 
 but because he admired he would have liked to 
 resemble, had that been within his power. He 
 followed the child with his eyes as long as he 
 was visible. Then he asked : " Do people who 
 are rich have ponies, Lucy ?" with much gravity 
 and earnestness. 
 
 " Very often, dear, and horses too ; but 
 that poor little fellow is not rich, you 
 know." 
 
 " I should like to be him," said Jock. 
 
 " A little circus-boy ? to ride upon the stage, 
 and have all the most horrid people staring at 
 youf 
 
 " And jump through the hoop, and gallop, 
 gallop, and have a pony like that all to my- 
 self. Ah— h!" Jock cried with a long-drawn 
 breath. 
 
 " Would you like a pony so very much, 
 Jocky? Then some day you shall have one," 
 said his sister in her tranquil voice. " I will buy 
 you one when I am i*ich." 
 
 "Are you soon going to be rich?" said the
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 07 
 
 little boy doubtfully. Like wiser people, he 
 preferred the smallest bird in the hand to a 
 whole aviary in the dim and doubtful distance. 
 But Lucy had not a very lively sense of 
 humour. She knew the circumstances better 
 than he did, and said, " Hush ! hush !" with a 
 little awe. 
 
 " Not for a very long time, I hope," she said. 
 
 Her little brother looked at her with wonder- 
 ing eyes ; but this mystery was too deep for him 
 to solve. He had no insight into those deep 
 matters which occupied his father's time, nor 
 had he the least notion that Lucy's wealth 
 depended upon that father's death, though it had 
 all been discussed with so much detail day by 
 day over his dreaming head. 
 
 "When you are rich, shall I be rich too, 
 Lucy ?" he said. 
 
 "I am afraid not, Jock ; but if I am rich, it 
 will not matter; you shall have whatever you 
 please. Won't that do just as well? 
 
 Jock paused and thought. 
 
 " Why shouldn't I be rich too ?" he remarked. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 It was not said as a question ; it was an obser- 
 vation. The fact did not trouble him, but en 
 passant he noticed it as a thing which might 
 perhaps want explaining. It was not of half 
 so much importance, however, as the next thing 
 that came into his head. 
 
 " I say, Lucy, do you think that boy on the 
 pony has to go to school ? What do you think 
 he can be learning at school ? I should like to 
 go there too." 
 
 " When you go, it shall be to a much nicer 
 place," she said with energy, " There is one 
 thing I should like to be rich for, and that is for 
 you, little Jock. You don't know anything at 
 all yet. You ought to be learning Greek, and 
 Latin, and mathematics, and a great many 
 other things. It makes me quite unhappy 
 when I think of it. I go to school, but it does 
 not matter for me ; and you are living all your 
 time, not learning anything, reading nonsense 
 on the hearth-rug. I could cry when I think 
 ol it," Lucy said. She said it very quietly, but 
 this was vehemence in her.
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 69 
 
 Jock looked up at her with wondering eyes ; 
 for his own part he had no enthusiasm for study, 
 nor except for the pleasure of being with the 
 Circus boy, whom he vaguely apprehended as 
 caracoling about the very vague place which his 
 imagination conceived of as w school," on his 
 pretty pony, had he any desire to be sent there : 
 but it did not occur to him to enter into any 
 controversy on the subject. 
 
 "Are you going up-town, Lucy?" he asked, 
 u have you got to go to shops again ? I wish you 
 would buy all your ribbons at one time, and net 
 be always, always buying more. Aunty Ford 
 when she goes out goes to shops too, and you 
 have to stand and stare about, and there's 
 nothing to look at, and nothing to do." 
 
 " What would you like to do, Jock T 
 
 " Oh, I don't know— nothing," said the boy : 
 "if I had a pony I'd get up on its back and 
 ride off a hundred miles before I stopped." 
 
 " The horse couldn't go a hundred miles, nor 
 you either, dear." 
 
 " Oh yes, I could, or ten at least, and if I
 
 70 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 met anyone on the road I'd run races with him ; 
 and I'd call the horse Black Bess, or else Kosy- 
 nant, or else Chiron ; but Chiron wasn't only a 
 horse you know, he was a horse-man." 
 
 " Well, dear," said Lucy calmly, " I wish you 
 were a horseman too, if you would like it so 
 very much." 
 
 "You don't understand," cried the child, 
 " you don't understand ! I couldn't be like 
 Chiron ; he had four legs, he was a man-horse. 
 He brought up a little boy once, lots of little 
 boys, and taught them. I say, Lucy, if Chiron 
 was living now I should like to go to school to 
 him." 
 
 " You are a silly little boy," said Lucy, u who 
 ever heard of a schoolmaster that had four legs ? 
 I wonder papa lets you read so many silly 
 books." 
 
 " They are not silly books at all, it is only 
 because you don't know," said Jock, reddening. 
 " Suppose we were cast on a desert island, what 
 would you do ? You don't know any stories to 
 tell round the fire ; but I know heaps of stories,
 
 SISTER AXD BROTHER. 71 
 
 I know more stories than anyone. Aunty 
 Ford is pretty good," the little fellow went on 
 reflectively, "she knows some; and she likes me 
 to tell her out of Shakespeare, and about the 
 Three Calendars, and the Genii in the Bottle. 
 and that improves her mind; but if you were 
 in a desert island what should you do? You 
 don't know one story to tell." 
 
 " I should cook your suppers, and mend your 
 clothes, and make the fire." 
 
 "Ah!" said the boy with a little contempt : 
 " bread and milk would do, you kDOw, or when 
 we shot a deer we'd just put him before the fire 
 and roast him. We shouldn't want much cook- 
 ing; and the skin would do for clothes." 
 
 " You would not be at all comfortable like 
 that," said Lucy, gravely shocked by the savagery 
 of the idea, " even Robinson Crusoe had to sew 
 the skins together and make them into a coat; 
 and how could you have milk," she added, 
 " without some one to milk the cow ?" 
 
 " I will tell you something that is very 
 strange," said Jock, "Aunty Ford never read
 
 / "l THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Robinson Crusoe; but she knows Christian 
 off by heart, and all about Mary and Christiana 
 and the children. And she knows the history 
 of Joseph, and David, and Goliath ; so you can- 
 not say she is quite ignorant; and she makes 
 me tell her quantities of things." 
 
 "You should not mix up your stories," said 
 Lucy, " the Bible is not like other books. About 
 Joseph and David and those other — " (Lucy had 
 almost said gentlemen, which seemed the most 
 respectful expression ; but she paused, reflecting 
 with a little horror that this was too modern 
 and common a title for Bible personages.) 
 " They are for Sunday," she went on, more 
 severely, to hide her own confusion, " they are 
 not like Robinson Crusoe or the Genii in the 
 Bottle ; you ought not to mix them all 
 up." 
 
 "It is Christian that is the most Sunday," 
 said Jock, " she explains it to me, and all what 
 it means, about the House Beautiful and the 
 ladies that lived there. There is a Punch, Lucy ! 
 and there's Cousin Philip ; never mind him, but
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 73 
 
 run, run, and let us have a good look at the 
 Punch." 
 
 (i I mustn't run," said Lucy holding him back, 
 " and I cannot stand and look at Punch. If Mrs. 
 Stone were to see me, she never would let me 
 come out with you any more." 
 
 " Oh, run, run !" cried the little boy, straining 
 at her hand like a hound in a leash. He had 
 dragged her half across the street when Cousin 
 Philip came up. This was the only other rela- 
 tive with whom Mr. Trevor had kept up any 
 intercourse. He was the young man to whom 
 the old schoolmaster had made over his school, 
 and he too, like Lucy, was taking advantage 
 of the half holiday. In Farafield, where young 
 men were scarce, Philip Rainy had already made 
 what his friends called a very good impression. 
 He was not it was true (to his eternal confusion 
 and regret) a University man ; but neither was 
 he a certificated schoolmaster. He had greatly 
 raised the numbers of old John Trevor's school, 
 and he occupied a kind of debateable position 
 on the borders of gentility, partly because of his
 
 74 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 connection with the enriched family perhaps, 
 but partly because his appearance and manners 
 were good, and his aspirations were lofty from 
 a social point of view. He had begun with a 
 determination to resist steadily all claims upon 
 him from below, and to assert courageously a 
 right to stand upon the dais of Farafield society ; 
 and though there may be many discouragements 
 in the path of a young man thus situated, it is 
 astonishing how soon a steady resolution of this 
 kind begins to tell. He had been five years in 
 old John Trevor's school, and already many 
 people accredited him with a B.A. to his name. 
 Philip told no fibs on that or any subject that 
 concerned his position. " When it was neces- 
 sary," as he said, he was perfectly frank on the 
 subject ; but there are so few occasions on which it 
 is necessary to be explanatory, a modest man does 
 not thrust himself before the notice of the world ; 
 and he was making his way — he was making an 
 impression. Though he had been brought up a 
 Dissenter like his uncle, he had soon seen the 
 entire incompatibility of Sectarianism with
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. (0 
 
 society, and he had now the gratification of hearing 
 himself described as a sound if moderate Church- 
 man. And he was now permanently upon the 
 list of men who were asked to the dinner parties 
 at the Rectory, when single men were wanted 
 to balance a superabundance of ladies, an emer- 
 gency continually recurring in a country town. 
 This of itself speaks volumes. Philip Rainy 
 was making his way. 
 
 He was a slim and fair young man, bearing 
 a family resemblance to his cousin Lucy ; and 
 he had always been very "nice" to Lucy and 
 to Jock. He came up to them now to solve 
 all their difficulties, taking Jock's eager hand 
 out of his sister's, and arresting their vehement 
 career. 
 
 " Stop here, and I'll put you on my shoulder, 
 Jock ; you'll see a great deal better than among 
 the crowd, such a little fellow as you are ; and 
 Lucy will talk to me." 
 
 They made a very pretty group, as they stood 
 thus at a respectful distance from Punch and 
 his noisy audience, Jock mounted on his cousin's
 
 76 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 shoulder clapping his hands and crowing with 
 laughter, while Lucy stood pleased and smiling 
 talking to Philip, who was always so "nice." 
 The passers-by looked at them with an interest 
 which was inevitable in the circumstances. 
 Wherever Lucy went, people looked at her and 
 pointed her out as the heiress, and naturally 
 the young man who was her relation was the 
 subject of many guesses and speculations. To 
 see them standing together was like the sug- 
 gestion of a romance to all Farafield. Were 
 they in love with each other 1 Would she marry 
 him % To suppose that Philip, having thus the 
 ball at his foot, should not be " after " the heiress, 
 passed all belief. 
 
 But the talk that passed between them, and 
 which suggested so many things to the lookers- 
 on, was of the most placid kind. 
 
 " How is my uncle V Philip asked. Old John 
 Trevor was not his uncle, but the difference 
 between age and youth made the cousinship 
 resolvable into a more filial bond, and it sounded 
 much nearer, which pleased the young man.
 
 SISTER AND BROTHER. 77 
 
 " May I come and see him one of these evenings, 
 Lucy ? I am dining out to-day and to-morrow ; 
 but Friday perhaps — " 
 
 " How many people you must know !" said 
 Lucy, half admiring, half amused; for young 
 persons at school have a very keen eye for 
 everything that looks like " showing off." 
 
 " Yes, I know a good many people — thanks 
 chiefly to you and my uncle." 
 
 " To me ? I don't know anybody," said 
 Lucy. 
 
 " But they know you ; and to be cousin to a 
 great heiress is a feather in my cap." 
 
 Lucy only smiled; she was neither pleased 
 nor annoyed by the reference, her fortune was 
 so familiar a subject to her. She said, " Pctpa 
 will be glad to see you. But I must not stand 
 here in the street, Mrs. Stone will be angry, 
 and I think Jock must have seen enough." 
 
 "Don't knock my hat off, Jock; have you 
 seen enough ? I will walk with you to the 
 Terrace," said Philip, and the little family 
 group as they went along the street attracted
 
 78 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 a great deal of interest. What more natural 
 than that Philip should be " nice " to his young 
 cousins, and turn with them when he met them 
 on a half holiday ? and it is so good to be seen 
 to have relations who are heiresses for a young 
 man who is making his way.
 
 79 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 
 
 rPHE children, as they were called in the 
 -*- Terrace, came home just in time for tea. 
 Mr. Trevor had changed the course of his 
 existence for some time past. He who all his 
 life had dined at two, and had tea at six, and 
 " a little something" in the shape of supper be- 
 fore he went to bed, had entirely revolutionized 
 his own existence by the troublesome invention 
 of " late dinner," which Mrs. Ford thought was 
 the suggestion of the Evil One himself. His 
 reason for it was the same as that of many other 
 changes which he had made at some cost to his 
 own comfort, but he did not explain to anyone
 
 80 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 what this meant, — at least, if he did explain it, 
 it was to Lucy, and Lucy was the most discreet 
 of confidants. When she came in with her 
 little brother, the Fords were seating themselves 
 at the table in their parlour, on which was the 
 tray and the tea-things, and a large plate of 
 substantial bread and butter. Here Jock took 
 his place with the old people, while Lucy went 
 upstairs. She would have liked the bread and 
 butter too, but her father liked her to spend this 
 hour with him, and he despised the modern in- 
 vention of five o'clock tea, understanding that 
 meal only, as the Fords did, who made them- 
 selves thoroughly comfortable, and had muffins 
 sometimes, and a variety of pleasing adjuncts. 
 Mr. Trevor was still sitting between the fire and 
 the window when Lucy went upstairs. She had 
 taken off her hat and out-door jacket, and went 
 in to her father a spruce, little, grey maiden, 
 with hair as smooth, and everything about her 
 as neat as if she had just come out of a bandbox. 
 In Mr. Trevor's rank of life, there is no personal 
 virtue in a woman that tells like neatness. He
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 81 
 
 looked at her with eyes full of fond satisfaction 
 and pleasure. He had put away the " Times" 
 from his knees, and now had a book, having 
 finished his paper, which lasted him till about 
 four o'clock, and then went downstairs to Mr. 
 Ford. The books Mr. Trevor read were chiefly 
 travels. He did not think novels were improving 
 to the mind ; and as for history and solid infor- 
 mation at his age, what was the use of them ? they 
 could serve very little purpose in his case ; though 
 Lucy ought to read everything that was instruct- 
 ive. He put down his book open, on its face, 
 on his knee when his daughter came in. His 
 eyes dwelt upon her with genuine pleasure and 
 pride as she took the chair in which Ford had 
 been sitting. She had some knitting in her hand, 
 which she began to work at placidly without 
 looking at it. Lucy with her blue eyes, her 
 fair, smooth hair, and her equally smooth grey 
 dress without a crease in it, looked the very im- 
 personation of good order and calm. She looked 
 at her father tranquilly with a pleasant smile. 
 She was no chattering girl with a necessity 
 VOL. i. G
 
 82 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of talk upon her. Even among the other girls 
 at Mrs. Stone's, Lucy was never, as Mrs. Ford 
 said, " one to talk." She waited for what should 
 be said to her. 
 
 " Well !" said her father rubbing his hands, 
 " and where have you been, Lucy, to-day." 
 
 " Up into the High Street, papa." 
 
 " I thiuk you are fond of the High Street, 
 Lucy." 
 
 " I don't know. The Common is very wet 
 and Jock will run and jump. I don't like it in 
 this weather. The High Street is dry and clean 
 — at least, it is dry and clean in front of Rat- 
 cliffe's shop." 
 
 " And there are all the pretty things in the 
 windows." 
 
 " I don't look at the things in the windows — 
 what is the good 1 You would let me buy them 
 all if I wanted them," said Lucy quietly. 
 
 " Every one !" said old Trevor with a chuckle. 
 " Every one ! you might have a new dress every 
 day of the year, if you liked !" 
 
 Lucy smiled, she went on with her knitting.
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 83 
 
 This delightful possibility did not seem to affect 
 her much — perhaps, because it was a possibi- 
 lity. 
 
 " We met the little Circus boy on his pony." 
 she said. " Jock thinks so much of him. Papa, 
 you always let me have everything I want — 
 might I have a pony for Jock. It would make 
 him so happy." 
 
 u No," said old Trevor, succinctly. " For 
 yourself as many as you like ; but that sort of 
 thing is not for the child. No, nothing of the 
 sort." 
 
 " Why ?" she said ; with something which in 
 Lucy was impatience and vexation. It was too 
 slight a ruffling of the calm surface to have told 
 at all in anyone else. 
 
 " Because, my dear, Jock must not have 
 anything that is above his own rank in life. 
 What should he do with a pony ? He is not a 
 gentleman's son to be bred up with foolish no- 
 tions. It would be all the worse for him to find 
 out the difference afterwards." 
 
 " But he is my brother," Lucy said, " and 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 your son, papa. If he is not a gentleman's son, 
 neither am I — How is he different from me ? 
 And do you think I can make such a difference 
 when — when I am grown up — " 
 
 " You mean when I am dead °? Say it out ; 
 isn't that what I'm always thinking of? The 
 little boy, my dear," said old Trevor gravely, 
 yet with his familiar chuckle breaking in, " is 
 a mistake. He didn't ought to have been at all, 
 Lucy. Now he's here we can't help it — we've 
 got to put up with it ; and we must make the best 
 of him. We can't send him out of the world 
 because it was a mistake his coming into it ; but 
 he must keep to his own rank in life." 
 
 " But, papa ! if you would think a little — 
 why should there be such a difference. I so 
 rich — and if he is to have nothing — " 
 
 " He will be as well off as he has any right 
 to be," said old Trevor. " I've laid by a little. 
 Dtfn't trouble yourself about Jock. What have 
 you been doing to-day f That is the thing of the 
 greatest importance. I want to know all my 
 little lady is about."
 
 AFTERNOON" TALK 85 
 
 " We had our French lesson," said Lncy, a 
 little disturbed under her smooth surface ; but 
 the disturbance was so little that her father 
 never found it out, " and — all the rest just as 
 usual, papa." 
 
 " And can you understand what Mounsheer 
 says ? Can you talk to him % I used to know 
 a few words myself — but never to talk it," said 
 the old man. His acuteness seemed to have 
 deserted him, and turned into the most innocent 
 simplicity — a little glow came upon his face. 
 He was almost childishly excited on this point. 
 " A few words were enough for me — what did I 
 want with French? though things are altered 
 now; and it's taught, I'm told, in every com- 
 mercial academy, and the classics neglected — 
 that wasn't the way in my time. If a boy learnt 
 anything besides reading and writing, it was Latin 
 — and I was considered very successful with my 
 Latin." 
 
 " That is another thing, papa," said Lucy ; 
 " don't you think Jock should go to school V 
 
 Old Trevor's face extended slightly. " Have
 
 86 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 you nothing to say to me, Lucy, but about 
 Jock?" 
 
 " Oh yes ! a great deal," said the girl. She 
 did not lose a single change in his face, though 
 she kept on steadily with her knitting, and she 
 saw it was not safe to go farther. She changed 
 the subject at once. " Monsieur says I get on 
 very well," she said ; *' but not so well as Ka- 
 tie Russell. She is first in almost everything. 
 She is so clever. You should hear her chatter 
 French — as fast ! It is like the birds in the trees, 
 as pretty to listen to— and just as little sense 
 that you can make out." 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes !" said the old man with a 
 little impatience. " There is no occasion for 
 you to learn like that, Lucy. She has to make 
 her living by it, that girl. I wonder now, you 
 that are in so very different a position, why it's 
 always this Russell girl you talk about, and 
 never any of the real ladies, the Honourable 
 Miss Barringtons and Lady — what do you call 
 her ? and the better sort. It was for them I sent
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 87 
 
 you to Mrs. Stone's school, Lucy," he said with 
 a tone of reproach. 
 
 " Yes, papa. I like them very well— they are 
 just like me. They do as little work as they can, 
 and get off everything they can. We had a 
 famous ride — but that was yesterday. I told 
 you about it. Lily Barrington's horse ran away, 
 or we thought it ran away ; and mine set off at 
 such a pace! I was dreadfully frightened, but 
 Lily liked it. She had done it on purpose, 
 fancy ! and thinks there is nothing in the world 
 so delightful as a gallop." 
 
 " And you call her Lily," said Mr. Trevor, 
 with a glow of pleasure, " that's right, my dear. 
 That's what I like to hear. Not that I want you 
 to neglect the others, Lucy ; but you can always 
 get a hold on the poor; no fear of them; I 
 want you to secure the great ones too. I want 
 you to know all sorts. You ought to with your 
 prospects. I was saying to Ford to-day, a girl 
 with your prospects belongs to England. The 
 country has an interest in you, Lucy. You 
 ought to know all sorts, rich and poor. That is
 
 88 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 just what I have been settling," he said, laying 
 his hand on the blotting book now closed, in 
 which his papers were. 
 
 Lucy gave him a little smile, nodding her 
 head. She was evidently quite in the secret of 
 the document there. But she did not stop her 
 knitting, nor was she so much interested in 
 that future which he was settling for her so care- 
 fully, as to ask any questions. Her little nod, 
 her smile, which had a kind of indulgence in it, 
 as for the vagaries of a child, her soft calm 
 and indifference bore the strangest contrast to 
 his absorption in all that concerned her. Per- 
 haps the girl did not realise how entirely her 
 future was being mapped out ; perhaps she did 
 not realise that future at all. There was a touch 
 of the gentlest youthful contempt for that foolish 
 wisdom of our fathers to which we are all in- 
 stinctively superior in our youth in her perfect 
 composure. It amused him — though it was so 
 odd that a man should be amused in such a 
 way ! and it did not matter any farther to 
 her.
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 89 
 
 u Mrs. Stone sent her kind regards, papa, and 
 she will gladly come over and take a cup of tea 
 any time you like, 3 ' 
 
 "Oh! she'll come, will she? I want to tell 
 her of something I've put in the will," said old 
 Mr. Trevor. 
 
 This roused Lucy from her composure. She 
 looked at him with a half-startled glance. 
 
 " You will tell— her: of that paper?" 
 
 " Well, not much about it, only something 
 that regards herself. You will be much sought 
 after when I am gone. All sorts of people will 
 be after you for your money; and I want to 
 protect you, Lucy. It's my business to protect 
 you; besides, as I tell you, you're too import- 
 ant to have just a couple of guardians like a 
 little girl with ten thousand pounds. You belong 
 to the country, my dear. A fortune like yours," 
 said the old man, now launched upon his favourite 
 subject, " is a thing by itself; and I want to 
 protect you, my dear." 
 
 This time Lucy, instead of the smile, breathed 
 a little sigh. It was a sigh of impatience, very
 
 90 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 momentary, very slight. This was the doctrine 
 in which she had been brought up, and she 
 would as soon have thought of throwing doubt 
 upon the ten commandments as of denying that 
 her own position made her of almost national 
 importance. She was aware of all that ; it was 
 merely the re-iteration of it which moved her to 
 the faintest amount of impatience ; but this she 
 very soon repressed. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Stone to protect me ?" she said. 
 
 " She is to be one of them, my dear. You 
 know I don't wish to do anything in secret, 
 Lucy. I wish you to know all my arrangements. 
 If you came to think afterwards that your father 
 had taken you by surprise, I — should not like 
 it ; and now I have got as far as where you 
 ought to live — listen, Lucy," said the old man. 
 The big document in the writing case was evi- 
 dently his one idea. His face brightened as he 
 took it up and spread out the large leaves. As 
 for Lucy, she sighed again very softly. How 
 the will wearied her! but she was heroic, or 
 stoical. She made no sort of stand against it ;
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 91 
 
 and after that one soft little protest of nature, 
 went on with her knitting, and listened with 
 great tranquillity. Her father read the para- 
 graphs that he had been consulting Ford about, 
 one by one ; and Lucy listened as if he had been 
 reading a newspaper. It awoke no warmer 
 interest in her mind. She had heard so much 
 of it that it did not affect her in any practical 
 way; it seemed a harmless amusement for her 
 father, and nothing more. 
 
 " Do you think you shall like going to Lady 
 Randolph, Lucy?" 
 
 " How can I tell, papa ? I don't know Lady 
 Randolph," Lucy said. 
 
 "No : but that's high life, my dear ; and here's 
 humble life, Lucy. I want you to know both; 
 and as for your marriage, you know — " 
 
 " You do not want me to marry," said the 
 sensible girl, " and I don't think I wish it either, 
 papa. But, if I ever did, it would not be nice 
 to have to go and ask all these people ; and they 
 never would agree. We might be quite sure of 
 that."
 
 92 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " Then you think I have been hard upon you ? 
 Always speak to me quite openly, Lucy. I 
 don't want to be hard upon you, my child, quite 
 the other way." 
 
 " Oh, it does not matter at all," said Lucy 
 cheerfully, plying her knitting needles, " I don't 
 think it is the least likely that I shall ever want 
 to marry ; as you have always told me, I shall 
 have plenty to do : and there will be Jock," she 
 added after a momentary pause. 
 
 "You have a great many prejudices about 
 Jock," her father said testily, " what difference 
 can he make ? He has not so very much to do 
 with you, and he will be in quite a different 
 sphere." 
 
 " Do you want me to have nobody belonging 
 to me f Lucy cried with a sudden vivacity not 
 without indignation in it : then subdued herself 
 as suddenly. " It doesn't at all matter," she 
 said. 
 
 " And you remember," said her father almost 
 humbly, " this is only till you are five-and- 
 twenty. It is not for all eternity ; you will have
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 93 
 
 plenty of time to marry, or do whatever you 
 please, after that." 
 
 Lucy nodded and smiled once more, " I don't 
 think I shall want to marry," she said ; 
 but while she spoke she was making a quiet 
 calculation of quite a different character. 
 " Jock is eight and I am seventeen," she was 
 saying within herself, " how old will Jock be 
 w r hen I am twenty-five?" It does not seem a 
 difficult question ; but she was not great in 
 arithmetic, and it took her a moment or two to 
 make it out. When she had succeeded her face 
 brightened up, " Still young enough to be 
 educated," she added always within herself, 
 and this quite restored her patience and her 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 "It will be very funny," she said, "to see 
 the Rector and Mr. Williamson consulting to- 
 gether. I wonder how they will begin : I am 
 sure Mr. Williamson will put on coloured 
 clothes to show how independent he is ; and the 
 Doctor— the Doctor will smile and rub his 
 hands."
 
 94 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 "You forget," said old Trevor with a slight 
 sharpness of tone, though he laughed, "that 
 such things have been as that 1 should outlive 
 the Doctor. He's younger than I am, to be sure, 
 but I would not have ycu to calculate on my 
 death before the Doctor. It might be quite a 
 different Rector. It might be a young man that 
 would, perhaps, put in claims to the heiress 
 himself. But I'll give you one piece of advice, 
 Lucy, beforehand. Never marry a parson. 
 They're always in the way. Other kinds of men 
 have their occupations ; but a parson with a rich 
 wife is always lounging about. Your mother 
 used to say so; and she was a very sensible 
 woman. She had an offer from one of the chapel 
 ministers when she was young; but she would 
 have nothing to say to him. A man in slippers, 
 always in-doors, was what she never could 
 abide." 
 
 " I don't think the Rector would be like that, 
 papa," said Lucy, " he doesn't look as if he ever 
 wore slippers at all—" 
 " Well, perhaps it is the other kind I am
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 95 
 
 thinking of," said Mr. Trevor, who had not 
 much acquaintance with the class which he called 
 " Church parsons." though his liberality of mind 
 was such that he had brought up Lucy parti- 
 ally, at least, as a Church-woman. His 
 conduct, in this respect, was much the same as 
 it was in reference to the distinctions of society. 
 He wanted her to have her share in all — to be 
 familiar alike with poverty and riches, and as 
 a kind of moral consequence with Church and 
 Chapel too. 
 
 It was almost a disappointment to the old 
 man that Lucy let the subject drop, and showed 
 no farther interest in it. He was a great deal 
 more excited about her future life than she was. 
 Lucy's life was, indeed, to her father, at once, 
 his great object and his pet plaything. It was 
 his determination that it should be such a life 
 as no one had ever lived before ; a perfection of 
 beneficence, wisdom, well-doing, and general 
 superiority. He wanted to guard her against 
 all perils, to hedge her round from every enemy. 
 Unfortunately, he knew very little of the world
 
 96 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the dangers of which he was so intent on avoiding ; 
 but he was quite unaware of his own ignorance. 
 He foresaw the well-known danger of fortune- 
 hunters ; but he did not perceive the impossibi- 
 lities of the arrangement by which he had, he 
 flattered himself, so carefully and cleverly 
 guarded against them. In this respect, Lucy 
 had more insight than her father, in her gentle 
 indifference. Her life was not a matter of theory 
 to Lucy. It was not a thing at all to be moulded 
 and formed by anyone ; it was to-day and to- 
 morrow. She listened to, without being affected 
 by, all her father's plans for her. They seemed 
 a dream— a story to her; the future to which 
 they referred was quite unreal in her eyes. 
 
 " We met Philip, papa," she said, after a 
 pause, with her usual tranquillity. " He is 
 always very nice to Jock. He put him upon his 
 shoulder to see the 'Punch.' And he says he 
 is coming to see you." 
 
 " You met Philip," said the old man. " And 
 he is coming to see me ? Well, let him come, 
 Lucy. He is a rising man, and a fine gentle-
 
 AFTERNOON TALK. 97 
 
 man— too fine for a homely old man like me. 
 But we are not afraid of Philip. Let him come : 
 and let us hope he will find his match when he 
 comes here." 
 
 " You do not like Philip, papa? I think he 
 is the only person you are— not quite just to. 
 What has he done ? He is always very nice to 
 Jock, and — " Lucy added hastily in a tone of 
 conciliation, " to me too." 
 
 " Done V said the old man with a snarl in 
 place of his usual chuckle. " He has done no- 
 thing but what is virtuous. He has doubled the 
 school, and he sets up for being a gentleman. 
 Don't you know that I have the highest opinion 
 of Philip ? I always say so ; the best of young 
 men — and he calls me uncle, though he is only 
 my wife's distant cousin, which is very con- 
 descending of him. Not to approve of Philip 
 would be to show myself a prejudiced old fool— 
 and — " Mr. Trevor added after a pause, showing 
 his old teeth in yellow ferocity, not unmixed 
 with humour, " that is exactly what I am." 
 Lucy looked at him with her peaceful blue eyes. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 She shook her head in mild disapproval. " He 
 is very nice to Jock— and to me too," she re- 
 peated softty. But she made no further defence 
 of her cousin. This was all she said.
 
 99 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PHILIP. 
 
 PHILIP RAINY was, as his relation had been 
 obliged to avow, an excellent young man ; 
 there was nothing to be found fault with in his 
 moral character, and everything to be applauded 
 in his manners and habits. He had acquired 
 his education in the most laborious way, at the 
 cheapest possible rate, and he had used it, since 
 he was in a condition to do so, in the most 
 admirable manner. He was intelligent and 
 amiable as well as prudent and ambitious, and 
 though he meant to establish a reputation for 
 himself, and a position among those who were 
 considered best in Farafield, yet he never forgot 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND 
 
 his family, whom he had left behind ; nor, though 
 he did not think it necessary to brag that he had 
 begun the world in the lowliest way, did he ever, 
 when it was called for, shrink from an avowal 
 of his origin, humble as that was. Why old 
 Mr. Trevor should dislike him it would be 
 difficult to say, or rather, though it might be 
 easy enough to divine the causes, it would be 
 almost impossible to offer any justification of 
 them. Old Trevor disliked the young man 
 because— he was so altogether unexceptionable 
 a young man. Every inducement that could 
 have led an old man to patronize and encourage 
 a young one existed here, and yet these very 
 reasons why he should like Philip made his old 
 relation dislike him. He was too good, and, 
 alas, too successful. He had doubled the school 
 in Kent's Lane, which the old gentleman, dis- 
 tracted by other occupations, had brought down 
 very low indeed, and this was something which 
 it was rather hard to forgive, though it was 
 worthy of nothing but praise. And he was 
 Lucy's cousin, on the side of the house from
 
 PHILIP. 101 
 
 which the fortune came, and perfectly suitable 
 to Lucy in point of age, and in almost every 
 way. How much trouble it would have avoided, 
 how much ease and security it would have given, 
 if Philip had been placed in Lucy's way and an 
 attachment encouraged between them ! It would 
 have been the most natural thing in the world ; 
 it would have restored the fortune to the name, 
 it would have enriched the family of the original 
 possessor, it would have saved all the trouble of 
 the will which old Trevor was elaborating with 
 so much care. Therefore it was that old Trevor 
 detested Philip Rainy, or, at least, was so near 
 detesting him that only Christian principle pre- 
 vented that climax of feeling. As it was, with 
 a distinct effort because the sentiment was wrong, 
 the old man restrained his conscious dislike of 
 the young one within the bounds of what he 
 considered permissible hostility. But all he 
 could do, could not entirely control that fierce 
 impulse of repugnance. He could not keep his 
 voice from altering, his expression from changing, 
 when Philip Rainy's name was mentioned.
 
 102 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Perhaps, at the bottom of all his anxiety about 
 Lucy's fortune, and his desire to shape and con- 
 trol her actions, was an underlying dread that 
 Lucy's fate might be lying quite near, and might 
 be decided at any moment before ever his pre- 
 cautions could come into effect. 
 
 Philip himself had no conception how far the 
 dislike of his uncle— as he called old Trevor, 
 without being in the least aware that this of it- 
 self was an offence — went. He did not even 
 know that it was only to himself that the old 
 man was so systematically ill-tempered. It was 
 seldom he saw old Trevor in the society of other 
 people, and he took it for granted, with much 
 composure, that the saarpness of his jibes and 
 the keenness of his criticisms were natural, and 
 employed against the world in general as well as 
 against himself. Being a young man determined 
 to rise in the world, it was not to be supposed 
 that he had not taken the whole question of his 
 family connections into earnest consideration, or 
 that he was entirely unmoved by the conscious- 
 ness that within his reach, and accessible to him
 
 PHILIP 103 
 
 in many ways not possible for other men, was 
 one of the greatest prizes imaginable, an heiress, 
 whose soft little hand could raise him at once 
 above all the chance of good or evil fortune, and 
 confer upon him a position far beyond anything 
 that was within his possibilities in any other 
 way. On this latter point, however, he was not 
 at all clear ; for Philip was young, and had not 
 learned to know these inexorable limits which 
 hem in possibility. He thought he could do a 
 great many things by his unaided powers, which 
 he would have easily seen to be impossible for 
 anyone else. He believed in occasions arising 
 which would give scope to his talents, and show 
 the world what manner of man it was which the 
 irony of fate confined to the humble occupation 
 of a schoolmaster in a little country town ; and 
 he entertained no doubt that when the occasion 
 came he would show himself worthy of it. 
 Therefore he was not sure that Lucy's fortune 
 could do much more for him than he could do for 
 himself; but he was too sensible to ignore the 
 difference it would make in his start, the great
 
 104 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 assistance it would be in his career. It would 
 give him an advantage of ten years, he said to 
 himself, in the musings of that self-confidence 
 which was so determined and arrogant, yet so 
 simple ; a difference of ten years — that stands 
 for a great deal in a man's life. To attain that 
 at thirty which in ordinary circumstances you 
 would only attain at forty, is an advantage 
 which is worthy many sacrifices ; but yet, at the 
 same time, if you are sure of attaining at forty, 
 or by good luck at thirty-nine, the good fortune 
 on which your mind is set, it is not perhaps 
 worth your while to make a very serious sacrifice 
 of your self-esteem or pride merely for the sake 
 of saving these ten years. This was why Philip 
 maintained with ease so dignified and worthy a 
 position in respect to his heiress-cousin. She 
 would make a difference of ten years— but that 
 was all ; and besides being a young man deter- 
 mined to get on in the world, he was a young 
 man who gave himself credit for fine feelings, 
 and independence of mind, and generosity of 
 sentiment. He could not, at this early stage
 
 phtlit 105 
 
 of his existence, have come to a mercenary 
 decision, and made up his mind to marry for 
 money. He did not see any necessity for it ; he 
 felt quite able to encounter fate in his own per- 
 son ; therefore, though he did not refuse to 
 acknowledge that it would be a very good thiDg 
 to marry an heiress, and very pleasant if the 
 woman with whom he fell in love should belong 
 to that class, he had not proposed to himself the 
 idea either of trying to fall in love with Lucy, 
 or attempting to secure her affections to himself. 
 The idea of her hovered before his miud as 
 a possibility — but there were many other 
 possibilities hovering before Philip, and some 
 more enticing, more attractive, than any heiress. 
 Therefore he did not spoil his own prospects by 
 perpetual visits, or by paying her anything that 
 could be called " attention" in the phraseology 
 of the drawing-room. His relations with her 
 were no more than cousinly ; he was very " nice ;" 
 but then he was even more " nice" to little Jock, 
 who was not his relation at all, than to Lucy. 
 It was part of his admirable character that he
 
 106 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 was fond of children, and always good to them, 
 so that no suspicion could possibly attach to the 
 very moderate amount of intercourse which was 
 conducted on so reasonable a footing. But the 
 more it was reasonable, the more it was cousinly, 
 the more did old Trevor dislike his child's 
 relation ; he had not the slightest ground for 
 fault-finding, therefore his secret wrath was 
 nursed in secret, and grew and increased. It 
 was all he could do to receive Philip with civility 
 when he came. He came in after dinner in a 
 costume carefully adapted to please, or at least 
 to disarm all objections, a compromise between 
 morning and evening dress ; and he made 
 judicious inquiries after the old man's health, 
 not too much, as if there was anything special in 
 his solicitude, but as much as mingled politeness 
 and family affection required. 
 
 " I hope you are standing the cold pretty well, 
 Sir," he said ; " spring is always so trying. I 
 can bear the winter better myself; at all events, 
 one does not expect anything better in 
 December, and one makes up one's mind to it."
 
 PHILIP. 107 
 
 " At your age," said old Trevor, " it was all 
 the same to me, December or July ; I liked the 
 one as much as the other. But I think we 
 might find something better to talk of than the 
 weather ; every idiot does that." 
 
 " That is true," said the young man, " it is 
 always the first topic among English people. 
 With our uncertain climate " 
 
 " I never was out of England, for my part," 
 the old man interrupted him sharply. " English 
 climate is the only climate I know anything 
 about. I don't pretend to be superior to it, 
 like you folks that talk of Italy and so forth. 
 What have I got to do with Italy ? It may be 
 warmer, but warm weather never agreed with 
 me." 
 
 " I have never been out of England either," 
 said the young man, with that persistence in the 
 soft word that turns away wrath, which is of all 
 things in the world the most provoking to irri- 
 table people ; and then he changed the subject 
 gently, but not to his own advantage. " I 
 thought you would like to hear, Uncle, how
 
 108 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 well everything is going on in Kent's Lane. I 
 am thinking of an assistant, the boys are getting 
 beyond my management ; indeed, if things go 
 on as they are doing, I shall soon have enough 
 to do managing, without teaching at all. I have 
 heard of a very nice fellow, a University man. 
 Don't you think that on the whole that would be 
 an advantage? people think so much more, 
 nowadays, — for the mere teaching, you know, 
 only for the teaching— of a man with a degree." 
 
 " A man with a fiddlestick !" said old Trevor. 
 " The question is, are you going into competition 
 with Eton and Harrow, Mr. Philip Rainy, or 
 are you the master of a Commercial Academy ? 
 that's the question. The man that founded that 
 establishment hadn't got a degree, no, nor 
 wouldn't have accepted one if they had gone on 
 their knees to him. He knew his place, and the 
 sort of thing that was expected from him. Oh, 
 surely, get your man with a degree ! or go and 
 buy a degree for yourself (it's a matter of fees 
 more than anything else, I have always heard,) 
 and starve when you have got it. But I'd like
 
 PHILIP. 109 
 
 you to hand over Kent's Lane first to some- 
 body that will carry it on as it used to be." 
 
 "I beg your pardon with all my heart, 
 Uncle," cried the young man. " I have not the 
 least intention of abandoning Kent's Lane. It's 
 my sheet-anchor, all I have in the world : and I 
 would not alter the character you stamped upon 
 it for any inducement. The only thing is, that 
 so much more attention is paid to the classics 
 nowadays " 
 
 " Curse nowadays, Sir !" cried old Trevor, his 
 countenance glowing with anger. Then he 
 pulled himself up, and recollected that such 
 language was far from becoming to his age and 
 dignity, not to speak of his Christian principles. 
 "I shouldn't have said that," he added in a 
 subdued tone ; " I don't wan't to curse anything. 
 Still I don't know what the times are coming to 
 with all these absurd novelties. The classics 
 (he had been boasting of his Latin an hour before) 
 for a set of shop-keepers' sons that want to 
 know how to add up their fathers' books ! It's 
 folly and nonsense, that's what it is. Even if
 
 110 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 you could do it, what's the advantage of snipping 
 all classes out on the same pattern ? It's a 
 great deal better to have a little difference. 
 Women, too — you'd clip them all out like images 
 in paper, the same shape as men. It's a pity," 
 he added grimly, " that your classics and your 
 degrees don't do more for those that have got 
 them. Many an M.A. I've seen in my time tacked 
 to the names of the biggest fools I've ever 
 known." 
 
 "Still it is not necessary to be a big fool, 
 Sir, because you are an M.A.," said Philip, 
 always mildly, but with a sigh. " It is a great 
 advantage to a man : I wish I had it. I know 
 what you will say, better men than I have not 
 had it; but just because I am not a better 
 man — " 
 
 For the first time old Trevor broke into his 
 habitual chuckle. " Give him some tea, Lucy," 
 he said. " I suppose you're one of the fashion- 
 able kind and have your dinner when I used to 
 have my supper. That's not the way to thrive, 
 my lad."
 
 PHILIP. Ill 
 
 " What does it matter whether you call it 
 dinner or supper. Sir V 9 said Philip, " and par- 
 don me, don't you do the samel" 
 
 " It makes a deal of difference," said the old 
 man. •" Parents like to hear that you have your 
 tea at six o'clock, and your supper at nine, like, 
 themselves. They don't like you to give yourself 
 airs, as if you were better than they are. You're 
 a clever fellow, Philip Rainy, and you think 
 you are getting on like a house on fire. But 
 you're a fool all the same." 
 
 " Papa, I wish you would not be so uncivil," 
 said Lucy, who had as yet taken no part in their 
 talk. 
 
 "I tell you he's a fool all the same. I kept 
 Kent's Lane a-going for thirty years, and I 
 ought to know. I've taught the best men in the 
 town. Oxford fellows, and Cambridge fellows, 
 and all sorts, have come to me for their mathe- 
 matics, though I never had a degree ; and I ate 
 my dinner at two and my tea at six as regular 
 as clock-work all the time. That's the way to 
 do, if you mean to keep it up all your life, and
 
 1 12 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 lay by a little money, and leave the place to your 
 son after you. If Jock had been older that's 
 what I should have made him do ; that is the 
 way to succeed in Kent's Lane." 
 
 There was a little pause after this, for Philip 
 was a little angry too, and had not command for 
 the moment of that soft word of which he made so 
 determined a use ; and at the same time he was 
 resolved not to quarrel with Lucy's father. He 
 said, after a while, in as easy a tone as he could 
 assume, 
 
 " I wish you would let me have Jock. He is 
 old enough for school now, and whatever you 
 want to do with him I could always begin his 
 education ; of course, you will give him every 
 advantage " 
 
 "I will give him as good as I had myself, 
 Philip, and as you had. Do you think I am 
 going to take Lucy's money for that child ? Not 
 a penny ! He shall be bred up according to his 
 own rank in life ; and by the time he's a man, 
 you'll have grown too grand for the old place, 
 and you can hand it over to him."
 
 PHILIP. 1 13 
 
 Philip opened his eyes in spite of him- 
 self. 
 
 "Then Lucy will be a great lady." he said, 
 half laughing, "and her brother a little school- 
 master in Kent's Lane." 
 
 Lucy, who was standing behind her father at 
 the moment, began to make the most energetic 
 signs of dissent. She made her mouth into a 
 puckered circle of inarticulate " No-o-s," and 
 shook her head with vehement contradiction. 
 Just below, and all unconscious of this panto- 
 mime, the old man grinned upon his visitor, 
 delighted with the opportunity at once of de- 
 claring his intentions and of inflicting a salutary 
 snub. 
 
 u That is exactly what I intend," he said, 
 " you have hit it. Even if it hadn't been just, 
 it would have been a fine thing to do as an 
 example ; but it is just as well. Is a fine lady 
 any better than a poor schoolmaster ? not a bit ! 
 each one in the rank of life that is appointed, 
 and one as good as another : that's always been 
 my principle. I wouldn't have stepped out of 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 my rank of life, or the habits of my rank of 
 life, not if you had given me thousands for it ; 
 not, I promise you," cried old Trevor, with a 
 snarl, "for the sake of being asked to dinner 
 here and there, as some folks are ; but being in 
 my own rank of life I thought myself as good 
 as the King : and that's why Lucy shall be a 
 great lady and her brother a little schoolmaster, 
 whether or not he's in Kent's Lane." 
 
 " But he shall not be so, papa, if I can help 
 it," Lucy said. 
 
 " You won't be able to help it, my pet," said 
 her father, relapsing into a chuckle, "not you, 
 nor anyone else ; that's one thing of which I can 
 make sure." 
 
 The two young people looked at each other 
 over his old head. They made no telegraphic 
 signs this time. Philip was for the moment 
 overawed by the old man's determination, while 
 Lucy, the most dutiful of daughters, was mute 
 in a womanly confidence of somehow or other 
 finding a way to balk him. She had not in 
 the least realized how her life was to be bound
 
 PHILIP. 115 
 
 and limited by the imperious will of the father 
 who grudged her nothing ; but Lucy accepted it 
 all quite tranquilly, whatever it might be— except 
 this. When she went with her cousin to the 
 door, she confided to him the one exception to 
 her purposes of obedience. 
 
 "Papa does not think what he is saying; I 
 never believe him when he talks like that. I to 
 be rich and Jock poor ! He only says it for fun, 
 Philip, don't you think ?" 
 
 " It does not look much like fun," Philip said, 
 with a rueful shake of his head. 
 
 " Well ! but old people — old people are very 
 strange ; they think a thing is a joke that does 
 not seem to us at all like a joke. I will 
 do all that papa wishes, but not about Jock." 
 
 "And I hope you won't let him persuade you 
 to think," said Philip, lingering with her hand 
 in his to say good night, " that I am neglecting 
 my work, or giving myself airs, or " 
 
 "Oh, that is only his fun," said Lucy, nodding 
 her head to him with a pleasant smile as he 
 went out into the night. 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 She was not pretty, he thought, as he walked 
 away, but her face was very soft, and round, 
 and pleasant; her blue eyes very steady and 
 peaceful, with a calmness in them which, in its 
 way, represented power. Philip, who was, 
 though so steady, somewhat excitable, and apt 
 to be fretted and worried, felt that the repose in 
 her was consolatory and soothing. She would 
 be good to come home to after a man had been 
 baited and bullied in the world. He had thought 
 her an insignificant little girl, but to-night he 
 was not so sure that she was insignificant ; and 
 Philip did not know anything at all about the 
 will and its iron rod.
 
 117 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 
 
 THE life of Lucy Trevor, at this period, was 
 divided between two worlds, very dissimilar 
 in constitution. The odd household over which 
 her father's will and pleasure was paramount, 
 though exercised through the medium of Mrs. 
 Ford, and in which so many out of the way 
 subjects were continually being discussed, all 
 with some personal reference to the old man and 
 his experiences and crotchety principles of action, 
 occupied one part of her time and thoughts ; but 
 the rest of her belonged to another sphere — to 
 the orderly circle of studies and amusements of 
 which the central figure was Mrs. Stone, and
 
 118 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the scene the White House, a large irregular 
 low building on the edge of the Common, which 
 was within sight of Mr. Trevor's windows in the 
 Terrace, and had appeared, through all the mist 
 and fog of those wintry days, with a kind of 
 halo round its whiteness like that of a rainy and 
 melancholy old moon, tumbled from its high 
 place to the low levels of a damp and flat coun- 
 try. Mrs. Stone's was known far and wide as 
 the best school for a hundred miles round, the 
 best as far as education was concerned, and 
 also the most exclusive and aristocratic. Lucy 
 Trevor was the only girl in Farafield who was 
 received as a day pupil. Efforts had been made 
 by people of the highest local standing to pro- 
 cure the admission of other girls of well-known 
 families in the town, but in vain. And why Mrs. 
 Stone had taken Lucy, who was nobody, who was 
 only old John Trevor's daughter, was a mystery 
 to her best friends. She had offended a great 
 many of the townspeople, but she had flattered 
 the local aristocracy, the county people, by her 
 exclusiveness ; and she offended both by the
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 119 
 
 sudden relaxation of her rule on behalf of Lucy. 
 The Rector's daughter would have been a thousand 
 times more eligible, or even Emmy Rushton, 
 whose mother had knocked at those jealous doors 
 in vain for years together ; and why should she 
 have taken Lucy Trevor, old John's daughter, 
 who was nobody, who had not the faintest pre- 
 tension to gentility? Lady Langton drove in, 
 as a kind of lofty deputation and representative 
 of the other parents who had daughters at 
 Mrs. Stone's school, to remonstrate with her, 
 and procure the expulsion of the intruder : but 
 Mrs. Stone was equal to the occasion. She did 
 not hesitate to say to the Countess : " Your 
 ladyship is at liberty to remove Lady Maud 
 whenever you please. I dispense with the three 
 months' notice." 
 
 It was this speech which established Mrs. 
 Stone's position far more than her excellence in 
 professional ways. A woman who dared to look 
 a Countess in the face, and make such a sug- 
 gestion, was too wonderful a person to be con- 
 templated save with respect and awe. Lady
 
 120 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Langton herself withdrew, abashed and con- 
 founded, protesting that to take Maud away was 
 the last idea in her mind. And Mrs. Stone's 
 empire was thus established. The incident made 
 a great impression on the county generally. 
 And it nearly threw into a nervous fever the 
 other mistress, conjointly with Mrs. Stone, of the 
 White House, her sister Miss Southwood (called, 
 as a matter of course, Southernwood by the 
 girls), who stood by aghast, and heard her say : 
 fc ' I dispense with the three months' notice ;" and 
 expected nothing less than that the sky should 
 fall, and the walls crumble in round them. 
 Miss Southwood liked to think afterwards that 
 it was her own deprecating glances, her look 
 of horror and dismay, and, above all, the 
 cup of exquisite tea which she offered Lady 
 Langton as she waited for her carriage which 
 put everything straight; but all her civilities 
 would never have established that moral ascend- 
 ency which her sister's uncompromising de- 
 fiance secured. 
 
 Miss Southwood was the elder of the two.
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 121 
 
 She was forty-five or thereabouts, and she was 
 old-fashioned. Whether it was by calculation, 
 to make a claim of originality for herself, such 
 as it was, or simply because she thought that 
 style becoming to her, nobody knew; but she 
 dressed in the fashions which had been current 
 in her youth, and never changed. She wore her 
 hair in a knot fastened by a high comb behind, 
 and with little ringlets drooping on either cheek ; 
 and, amid the long and sweeping garments of 
 the present era, wore a full plain skirt which 
 did not touch the ground, and gigot sleeves. In 
 this dress she went about the house softly and 
 briskly, without the whisking and rustling of 
 people in long trains. She was a very mild 
 person in comparison with her high-spirited and 
 despotic sister ; but yet was gifted with a gentle 
 obstinacy, and seldom permitted any argument 
 to beguile her from her own way. She had, 
 nominally, the same power in the house as Mrs. 
 Stone, and it was partly her money which was 
 put in peril by her sister's audacity ; but the 
 elder had always been faithful to the younger,
 
 122 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and though she might grumble, never failed to 
 make common cause with her, even in her most 
 heroic measures. As for Lucy Trevor, though 
 she shook her head, she submitted, feeling that 
 to suffer on behalf of an heiress was a pain from 
 which the worst sting was taken out ; for it was 
 not to be supposed that a girl so rich could allow 
 her schoolmistress to come to harm on her 
 account. Mrs. Stone was far more imposing in 
 appearance. She was full five years younger, 
 and she was not old-fashioned. She was tall, 
 with a commanding figure, and her dresses were 
 handsome as herself, made by an artiste in town, 
 not by the bungling hands of the trade in Fara- 
 field, of rich texture, and the most fashionable 
 cut. She was a woman of speculative and theo- 
 retical mind, believing strongly in <; influence," 
 and very anxious to exercise it when an oppor- 
 tunity occurred. She had her ideas, as Mr. 
 Trevor had, of what might be made of an 
 heiress ; and it seemed to Mrs. Stone that there 
 was no class in the world upon which " influence" 
 might tell more, or be more beneficially exer-
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 123 
 
 cised. Her ideas on this subject laid her open 
 to various injurious suppositions. Thus, when 
 she took Lady Maud Langdale into her bosom, 
 as it were — moved by a brilliant hope of influence 
 to be exercised on society itself by means of 
 a very pretty and popular young woman of 
 fashion — vulgar bystanders accused Mrs. Stone 
 of tuft-hunting, and of paying special honour 
 to the girl who was the daughter of an Earl, 
 out of mere love of a title, an altogether un- 
 worthy representation of her real motive. And 
 her sudden stand on behalf of Lucy took the 
 world by surprise. They could not fathom her 
 meaning : that she should have defied the Coun- 
 tess, whom up to this time she had been sup- 
 posed to worship with a servile adulation, on 
 account of a little bit of a girl of no particular 
 importance was incomprehensible. It was known 
 in Farafield that Lucy had a fortune, but it was 
 not known how great that fortune was, and 
 after much groping among the motives possible 
 to Mrs. Stone in the circumstances, the country- 
 town gossips had come to the conclusion
 
 124 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 that she aspired to a marriage with old John 
 Trevor, and an appropriation to herself of all 
 his wealth. This supplied a sufficient reason 
 even for a breach with the Countess. To be 
 asked to Langdale, which was the finest thing 
 that could happen to her in connection with 
 Lady Maud, was, though gratifying, not to be 
 compared with the possibility of manning a 
 rich man in her own person, and becoming one 
 of the chief ladies of Farafield. This was how 
 it was accounted for by that chorus of spectators 
 who call themselves society, and Miss South- 
 wood herself entertained, against her will, the 
 same opinion. This suggestion seemed to make 
 everything clear. 
 
 A few days after that on which Mr. Trevor 
 read to Ford the last paragraph which he had 
 added to his will, Lucy tapped at the door of 
 Mrs. Stone's private parlour with her father's 
 message. The ladies were seated together in 
 their private sanctuary, resting from their 
 labours. It was a seclusion never invaded by 
 the pupils except on account of some important
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 125 
 
 commission from a parent, or to ask advice, 
 or by order of its sovereigns. Lucy came in 
 with the little old-fashioned curtsey which 
 Mrs. Stone insisted upon, and made her re- 
 quest. 
 
 " If you would come to tea to-morrow night. 
 Papa is very sorry, but he bids me say he 
 thinks you know that he cannot come to 
 you." 
 
 " How is Mr. Trevor, Lucy !" 
 
 Miss Southwood, who was looking at her 
 sister anxiously, thought she asked this question 
 by way of gaining time. Could he have sent 
 for her in order to propose to her, the anxious 
 sister thought. What a very curious way of 
 proceeding ! but a rich old man, with one foot 
 in the grave, could not be expected to act like 
 other men. 
 
 " He is— just as he always is : very busy, 
 always writing; but he cannot go out, and if 
 you would be so kind " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I will be so kind," said Mrs. Stone, 
 with a smile ; " it is not the first time, Lucy.
 
 126 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Is he going to complain of yon, or to tell me of 
 something he wants for yon ?" 
 
 "I think," said Lucy, "it is about the 
 will." 
 
 " Dear me !" Miss Southwood cried. " What 
 can you have to do, Maria, with Mr. Trevor's 
 will r 
 
 Mrs. Stone smiled again. 
 
 " He goes on with it, then, as much as ever?" 
 she said. 
 
 " Oh, yes, almost more than ever; it gives him 
 a great deal of occupation," said Lucy, with a 
 grave face. There were some things that she 
 had it in her heart to say on this subject ; she 
 looked at the schoolmistress anxiously, not know- 
 ing if she might trust her, and then was silent, 
 fearing to open her mind to anyone on the sub- 
 ject of Jock. 
 
 " Poor child ! he is putting a great burden 
 upon you at your age; the management of a 
 fortune is too much for a girl ; but, Lucy, you 
 will always know where to find advice and help 
 so far as I can give it. You must never hesitate
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 127 
 
 to come to me, whatever happens," Mrs. Stone 
 said. 
 
 " Thank you," said Lucy, in her tranquil 
 way. She had read something in the 
 schoolmistress's face, she could not have told 
 what, which sealed her lips in respect to 
 Jock. 
 
 " Dear me !" cried Miss Southwood again. 
 " you are both very mysterious ; I should think 
 nothing was easier than to manage a fortune. 
 It is when one has no fortune that life 
 is difficult to manage," she said with a sigh. 
 
 " The wonder is," said Mrs. Stone, calmly 
 ignoring her sister's interruption, "that your 
 father does not carry out some of his own views, 
 Lucy, instead of leaving everything to you. It 
 would be in your favour if he would take a 
 larger house, and get together an establishment 
 more befitting your prospects ; I think I shall 
 suggest this to him. He has always been very 
 civil in listening to my suggestions. A proper 
 establishment, all set in order in his lifetime, 
 would be a great matter for you." '
 
 128 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 "But, Maria, Maria!" cried Miss South- 
 wood, " think, for Heaven's sake ! what 
 you are doing ; think what people will say. 
 That you should suggest such a thing would 
 never do." 
 
 Mrs. Stone turned round and looked at her 
 with scathing indifference. 
 
 " What do people say V she asked, and went 
 on without waiting for an answer. " You ought 
 to be living as becomes your future position," 
 she said ; " the associations you will form at 
 present, and the habits you are acquiring, can- 
 not be good for you. Thank heaven you are 
 here, my dear child, in a place which, however 
 homely, is intended as a place of training for 
 girls who have to occupy high positions." 
 
 " I don't think it will matter for me," said 
 Lucy ; " I shall never be a great lady, I shall 
 only be rich. No one will expect so very much 
 from me." 
 
 " They will expect a great deal, and I hope 
 my pupil will do me credit," said Mrs. Stone ; 
 and she rose up and kissed Lucy with a little
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 129 
 
 enthusiasm. " I agree with your father, I thiuk 
 there is a great deal in you, Lucy ; but I don't 
 agree with him as to the best means of bringing 
 it out. He thinks that you should be plunged 
 into life all of a sadden, and a great call made 
 upon you ; but I believe in education ; we shall 
 soon see who is right." 
 
 " Oh, 1 hope not," cried Lucy, " I hope not ; 
 for before you can know anything about it papa 
 will have to be " 
 
 " Not if he takes my way, Lucy ; he ought 
 to take Holm wood, that pretty house near Sir 
 Thomas Randolph's, and give you a beginning ; 
 and I think he ought to do some of the things 
 in his will which he is talking of leaving upon 
 you ; I will speak to him to-morrow night. Yes, 
 you can say I will come ; but do not think 
 too much of these serious matters ; go and 
 amuse yourself with your companions, my 
 dear." 
 
 "Maria," said Miss Southwood, when the 
 door closed, " you think yourself a great deal 
 wiser than I am, but you must hear what I 
 vol. I. K
 
 130 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 have to say. If you go and advise that old man 
 to take Holmwood and set up an establishment, 
 there will be but one thing that anybody can 
 think. If you care anything for the opinion of 
 the world, or for my opinion, for heaven's sake 
 don't do it, don't do it ! a woman in your posi- 
 tion has need to be so careful. Of course, it 
 stands to reason that is what everybody will 
 think." 
 
 " What is what everybody ? Your style 
 
 in conversation is very careless," said Mrs. Stone, 
 with great indifference. But her counsellor 
 would not be put down. 
 
 " I will tell you exactly what will be thought," 
 she said, solemnly. " What is the common talk 
 already ? that you mean to marry that old man. 
 Why did you take up the girl, risking your whole 
 connection ? You that have always been so 
 exclusive — a girl of no family at all ! you must 
 have had a motive, no one ever acts without a 
 motive ; and, perhaps if he is very rich, and you 
 
 could be sure of carrying it out But how 
 
 do we know that he is really very rich? and
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 131 
 
 most likely you will not be able to carry it out : 
 and at your age to risk your reputation— oh, I 
 don't mean in any wrong way — but to risk your 
 character for sense and good taste, and all that ! 
 Consider for one moment, consider, Maria, 
 what the ' parents' w r ould say, what the parents 
 would have a right to say !" 
 
 " If you think that I am to be kept in order 
 by a threat of what 'parents' will think!" said 
 Mrs. Stone. " Do you suppose I will ever give 
 in to parents? why, it would be our destruction. 
 But make your mind easy, I don't mean to marry 
 old Trevor, and he does not mean to ask me. 
 Listen ! you don't know what you are talking 
 about. That girl whom you think nothing of, 
 that girl you are always taunting me about : and 
 she is a very nice girl, as simple as a daisy and 
 
 as true Listen, Ellen ! she will be the 
 
 Greatest Heiress in England one of these 
 days." 
 
 Miss Southwood stood and listened with all 
 her soul, her eyes and her mouth opening wider 
 and wider, her imagination set suddenly on fire, 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 for she had an imagination, and that of a most 
 practical kind. The greatness of Lucy's fortune 
 had never been so plainly set before her. She was 
 so much taken by surprise that she spoke with a 
 gasp, as if all her breath and energy were thrown 
 into the question. 
 
 " And what do you mean to do f 
 " I mean to manage her, if I can, for her 
 own good, and for the good of her fellow- 
 creatures," cried Mrs. Stone, excited too. 
 " Power, that is what I have always wanted. I 
 know I can use it well, and Lucy is a good girl, 
 good to the bottom of her heart. She will want 
 to do good with her money : and money, money 
 
 is power." 
 
 Miss Southwood listened, but she did not 
 
 share her sister's enthusiasm. Her countenance 
 
 tell into shades of disapproval and impatience. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " You were always so high-flown," she said. 
 
 " I never saw anything come of these heiresses. 
 
 Manage her ! you ought to know by this time 
 
 girls are not such easy things to manage. But
 
 THE WHITE HOUSE. 133 
 
 there is a much better thing you can do, marry 
 her ! and that will be good for her and us. 
 
 Mrs. Stone looked at her sister with a smile 
 which was somewhat supercilious. 
 
 <; That is, of course, your first idea ; and how, 
 if I may ask, would such an expedient be good 
 for us? if I thought of good for us — which is a 
 thing that never entered my thoughts "' 
 
 "Because you have no family affection, Maria. 
 I have always said it of you. You think 
 of the girl more than of your own relations. 
 How is it possible," asked Miss Southwood 
 severely, " that you could have any hand in the 
 disposal of an heiress and not think of 
 Frank?"
 
 134 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 T UCY went home a little impressed by what 
 ■" Mrs. Stone had said. It had never occurred 
 to her before to think of anything but her father's 
 will and pleasure in the matter, or to suppose 
 that she had anything to do but to acquiesce in 
 his arrangements ; but when the idea was put 
 into her head, it commended itself to her reason- 
 able mind. If he were, at least, to begin to do 
 some of the things which he had by his will 
 commanded her to do, what an ease and comfort 
 it would be ! and she could not but think that it 
 would be a relief to himself, as well as for her, 
 could he be made, as Mrs. Stone suggested, to
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 135 
 
 see it in this way. In the first place, it would 
 obviate on his part all necessity for dying, 
 which, at present, was the initial requirement, 
 the one thing needful, before any of his regula- 
 tions could be carried out. Why should he die ! 
 She could not but perceive, as she thought over 
 the whole subject dispassionately, according to 
 her nature, that from his own point of view it 
 would be a mistake if his life were prolonged. 
 The whole scheme was based upon his death. 
 So long as he did not die it was a mere imagina- 
 tion. And why should this be? far better to 
 get over this fundamental necessity by changing 
 the construction of his plan altogether, and 
 begin to carry out his wishes himself. 
 When they were sitting together in the after- 
 noon, which was wet and dull, the idea took a 
 stronger hold upon her, and it was when Mr. 
 Trevor was actually writing down something 
 new that had occurred to him, that her thoughts 
 came the length of speech. She looked up from 
 her knitting, and he stopped, with the pen 
 in his hand, and, looking round upon her,
 
 136 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 listened with a smile to what Lucy might have to 
 say. 
 
 "Why should you take all this trouble, 
 papa ?" she said suddenly. " I have been think- 
 ing; and this is what I feel sure of, that it 
 should all be altered. You are not ill, or likely 
 to die. Instead of writing out all these orders 
 for me, would it not be much better if you 
 would put that paper aside and do the 
 things you have put into it yourself?" 
 
 He looked at her over the top of his spectacles 
 with an air of consternation. 
 
 " Do the things myself! what things?" he 
 said, then paused and pushed his spectacles up 
 on his forehead, and gazed at her almost fiercely 
 with his small keen eyes. "That paper!" he 
 repeated, " do you mean the will, my will, 
 Lucy ?" The tone in which he spoke was as if 
 it had been the British Constitution which Lucy 
 proposed to set aside. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " You see, papa, I shall be 
 very young, I shall not have very much 
 sense."
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 137 
 
 " You have a great deal of sense, Lucy," he 
 said, mollified, " far more than most girls. Provi- 
 dence has made you for the work you have got 
 to do." 
 
 "But, papa," she said, "I shall be very 
 young ; it will be very hard upon me to decide 
 what is to be done with all that money, and to 
 give and not to give. It will be very hard. 
 How should I know which are the right people ? 
 I should either want to give to everybody or to 
 nobod} 7 . I should throw it away, or I should 
 be too frightened to make any use of it at 
 all." 
 
 "That will be impossible," said old Trevor, 
 with a nod of satisfaction ; " I have taken pre- 
 cautions about that." 
 
 " Then I should give foolishly, papa." 
 
 " Very likely, my dear, very likely ; everyone 
 has to pay for his own experience. It is a very 
 dear commodity, Lucy ; I can't give you mine, 
 you must get it for yourself, and it has always, 
 always to be paid for. There is no question 
 about that."
 
 138 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 "But, papa, would it not be a great deal 
 better — you who have this experience, who have 
 paid for it and got it— instead of living quietly 
 here as if you were nobody, to do it all your- 
 self?" 
 
 The old man laughed. 
 
 "There, you have hit it, Lucy," he said, 
 " there, you have hit it, my dear. I live quietly, 
 as if I were nobody— and I am nobody — that is 
 exactly the state of affairs." 
 
 " But — " she cried, with great surprise and 
 indignation, "if you mean nobody in family, 
 then neither am I ; but. the money, the money 
 is all yours to do with it whatever you 
 please." 
 
 Once more he laughed, and chuckled, and lost 
 his breath, and coughed before he could recover it 
 again ; and whether it was the laughing, or the 
 coughing, or something else, Lucy could not tell, 
 but the water stood in his eyes. 
 
 " You are mistaken, Lucy, you are mistaken," 
 he said. " You must understand the truth, my 
 dear; neither am I anyone to speak of, nor is
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 139 
 
 the money mine. I have made a little in my 
 life — oh, very little — a poor schoolmaster's earn- 
 ings, what are they 1 nothing to make a fuss 
 about. I've put my little savings away for 
 Jock, you know that. A few thousand pounds, 
 just as much as will give him a start 
 in the world, if it is well taken care 
 of." 
 
 "Papa, you ought to give Jock the half," 
 said Lucy, reproachfully, " it is not fair that he 
 should have nothing, and that all should come to 
 me." 
 
 " Listen to her !" said the old man, " first tell- 
 ing me to spend it myself, and then to give 
 half to the boy. Nothing of the sort, Lucy ; 
 I know what justice is, and I mean to do it. 
 Do you think I could take poor Lucilla's money 
 to make that brat a gentleman ? Why, it's a 
 kind of insult to her, poor thing, that he's there 
 at all. I don't say a word against his mother, 
 Lucy, but I always felt I never ought to have 
 married her. I was not like a young man, 
 I was middle-aged even before I married poor
 
 140 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Lucilla, and I had no business to have the other ; 
 it was a mistake, it was an affront to your poor 
 mother. People say that you show how happy 
 you've been with the first when you get a 
 second, but I don't go in with that. When I 
 think of facing these two women and not 
 knowing which I belong to, I — I don't like it, 
 Lucy. Lucilla was always very considerate, 
 and made great allowances, but there are things 
 a woman can't be expected to put up with, and I 
 don't like the thought." 
 
 The humour and half-ludicrous pathos of this 
 explanation, which was made between a laugh 
 and a sob, was lost upon Lucy, who was alto- 
 gether taken by surprise, and whose sense of 
 humour was but little developed. She gazed at 
 him with her eyes a little more widely opened 
 than usual, not knowing what to say. Had she 
 been a more experienced person, no doubt she 
 would have consoled him with the reflection that 
 husbands and wives, as we are told, do not 
 stand exactly on the same footing in the next 
 world. But she did not feel capable of saying
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 141 
 
 anything in opposition to this matter-oi-fact 
 compunction ; it has much in it which commends 
 itself to the unsophisticated. She only gazed 
 at her father, seeing difficulties in the way of 
 his exit from the world which she had never 
 thought of before. 
 
 " But that is neither here nor there," he said, 
 with his usual chuckle much subdued. " It is 
 only to explain to you why I won't give anything 
 but my own savings to Jock. I have often told 
 you so before — but now you know the reason 
 why." 
 
 Lucy was silent for a time, pondering over all 
 this — then she said in the same serious tone. 
 " But, papa, I don't see that what you have 
 said is any answer to my question. I want 
 to know why you should live here so quietly 
 and save, and leave everything to me to do — 
 when it would be so much better to do it your- 
 self." 
 
 " Some one has put this into your head." 
 
 " No — only something set me thinking — why 
 shouldn't you, papa? take a great house instead
 
 142 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of this ; and have carriages and servants, and 
 do all these things — giving and endowing, and 
 building and setting up, that you want me to 
 do-" 
 
 The old man laughed with less complication 
 of sentiment than before. " I should make a 
 fine country gentleman," he said, " to sit down 
 and hob and nob with the Earl and Lord Bar- 
 rington, and Sir John and Sir Thomas. What 
 should I do with grand carriages, that never go 
 outside these four walls— or with men-servants 
 when I can't bear the sight of 'em. No, no! 
 and I shouldn't like it, neither. I can put it 
 all down on paper for you ; but I shouldn't like 
 to do it myself. I like to stick to the money, 
 Lucy. I like to lay it up, and see it grow — 
 that's my pleasure in life. It makes me happy 
 when the stocks go up. Interest and compound 
 interest, that's what pleases me." 
 
 " But, papa," said Lucy, astonished, " that is 
 all quite different," she nodded her head towards 
 the will always lying in the blotting-case within 
 reach of his hand. " There it is all spending
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 143 
 
 and giving ; over and over again you say there 
 is to be no hoarding up, no putting by." 
 
 " Ah !" said old Trevor, rubbing his hands 
 with enjoyment, " that is for you ! that is a 
 different thing altogether. When I've had my 
 own way all my life, down to the last moment, 
 why, then you shall have yours." 
 
 " How can you call it mine V 9 she said, " I 
 don't think I want to have my own way — except 
 in some things. I am very willing to do what 
 you tell me, papa ; but it will not be my will — 
 it will be your will. Why then shouldn't you 
 do it yourself, and have the pleasure of it, and 
 not leave it to me V 
 
 " The pleasure of it !" he said. And then 
 paused and cleared his voice, and drew his chair 
 nearer to hers. " Look here, Lucy," he said, 
 " you have heard something about your mother — 
 not very much ; but still you have heard some- 
 thing. She was a good woman, a very good 
 woman. She was not of my kind. In the way 
 of money, she let me manage — she never inter- 
 fered. But still she was not of my kind. She
 
 144 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 was a woman that had little but trouble in this 
 world, Lucy. She was what people call an old 
 maid when we married. We were both old 
 maids for that matter," he added, with his usual 
 chuckle, " and she had always had a hard life. 
 She was the old maid of the family ; when any- 
 thing was wrong, she was the one that was sent 
 for. She was the one that nursed them all when 
 they were ill. Father and mother — she closed 
 both their eyes. She never had time to think 
 what was going to become of her. When she 
 came back to Farafield to live with poor Robert, 
 nobody knew he was rich. It was the old story 
 over again. She thought she was coming only 
 to nurse him, and slave for him till he died. 
 Your mother was a good woman — a very good 
 woman, Lucy — " 
 
 His voice was a little thick, and the tears 
 sprang into Lucy's eyes. 
 
 " Oh ! thank you, papa ; thank you for telling 
 me," she said. 
 
 " That she was," he went on after a little 
 pause, " the best of women. And after we were
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 145 
 
 married she had just as hard a life as ever. She 
 was never well ; and all your little brothers and 
 sisters came — and went again. That's very hard 
 upon a woman, Lucy. A baby — who cares much 
 about a baby ? it does not seem anything to 
 make a fuss about. There's too many of them 
 in the world ; but to have them, and to lose 
 them, is terrible work for a woman. "We didn't 
 know about the money at first ; and what's 
 money when things are going to the bad in that 
 way? She never got what you may call the 
 good of it. She was one of your giving people. 
 Her hand was never out of her pocket as long as 
 she had a penny in it ; but she never rightly 
 got the good of the money. In the first 
 place, we didn't know about it : and in 
 the second place, why, you know there was 
 me." 
 
 " You ?" Lucy looked at him with a question 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " Yes," said old Trevor with a comical look 
 of half real, half simulated penitence. " I 
 wanted to tell you all this some time, to show 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 you your duty— there was me, Lucy. I told you 
 I was fond of money; and more still, when I 
 wasn't used to it. I clutched it all, and wanted 
 more ; and she left it all to me, poor dear. She 
 never even knew how much it was — she let me 
 do whatever I pleased. I didn't even always 
 let her have what she wanted for her poor folks, 
 Lucy," he added ruefully, shaking his head ; but 
 there was something about the corner of his 
 mouth which was not repentance. " I was a 
 beast to ber — that's just what T was ; but, poor 
 thing, she never knew — She thought to the 
 last we couldn't afford any more. She left all 
 the money matters to me." 
 
 " She ought to have had her money for the 
 poor, papa." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ; don't I say so ?" a half chuckle 
 of triumph in his own successful craftiness, 
 mingled with the subdued tone appropriate to 
 this confession. " And since she's been dead," he 
 added with a touch of complacency, " I've be- 
 haved badly by poor Lucilla. I acknowledge 
 that I have behaved badly ; and that is just
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 147 
 
 why I am determined she shall have her 
 revenge — " 
 
 " Her revenge !" Lucy looked at him 
 aghast. 
 
 * Yes, her revenge ; you, Lucy, a girl that 
 shall be brought up a lady, that shall have 
 everything of the best ; that shall do as she 
 pleases, and give with both hands. Ah, 
 Lucilla, poor thing, would have liked that ; she 
 would have ruined me with giving," he cried 
 with a momentary tone of complaint, " but you, 
 Lucy, you won't be able to ruin yourself. You 
 will always have plenty, you will be able to cut 
 and come again as people say ; isn't that what 
 I have bred you up for since you were a baby ? 
 No, no, it isn't I that could do it (and I wouldn't 
 if I could) nor Jock that shall have a penny. 
 It is you that shall be the greatest heiress in 
 England, and do the most for the poor, as 
 Lucilla would have done. Please God she shall 
 have her revenge." 
 
 These strange words, which, though they were 
 mixed with so quaint an admixture of comic self- 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 consciousness, had yet passion in them, and an odd 
 kind of idealism and romance, passed over the 
 placid head of Lucy without exciting any 
 feeling but surprise. She was very much 
 astonished. It was impossible to her to under- 
 stand the vehemence of feeling, generous in its 
 way, though chequered with so much that was 
 not generous, in her father's tone, and she was 
 totally at a loss how to reply. They were alone, 
 and when they were alone the conversation 
 almost always turned on the will, which was 
 not an enlivening subject to Lucy. Certainly 
 the diversion she had made of their mutual 
 thoughts from their ordinary channel had been 
 more amusing ; but it had been perplexing too. 
 A little tea-table was set out in the middle of 
 the room, the " massive " silver tea-service which 
 had been one of the few gratifications got by 
 Lucy's mother out of her fortune, shining upon 
 it, in full display for the benefit of Mrs. Stone, 
 who was expected. Mr. Trevor was in a garru- 
 lous mood ; he had prepared himself to talk while 
 he waited for his visitor, and Lucy's questions
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 149 
 
 had been all that were wanted to loosen the 
 flood-gates. While she sat opposite to him, 
 wondering, pondering, occasionally looking np 
 at him over her knitting, taking into her mind 
 as best she could the information she had got, 
 but not knowing what to say, he proceeded as if 
 unable to stop himself, with a little gesture of 
 excitement, his hand sawing the air. 
 
 u Xo, she never had much comfort in her life 
 — hard work, sick-nursing and trouble, one 
 dying after another, poor Lucilla; but all she 
 didn't have, her girl shall have. She was a 
 governess one while. Always be kind to gover- 
 nesses, Lucy, wherever you see them. Your 
 mother was a real good woman. She would 
 have honoured any station ; she had the most 
 unbounded confidence in me, she never asked 
 a word of explanation." 
 
 " Papa," said Lucy, glad, in the disturbance 
 of her mind, for any interruption, "1 think I 
 hear Mrs. Stone." 
 
 " Then go down and meet her," said old Trevor, 
 but he went on with his recapitulation of his
 
 150 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 wife's virtues. " Never asked a question, was 
 always satisfied whatever I said to her — " 
 
 Lucy heard his voice as she went down- 
 stairs. She was still wondering, not knowing 
 what to make of it, but self-possessed in 
 that calm of youth which nothing disturbs. It 
 was odd that her father should speak so. He 
 had never been so confidential, or talked of him- 
 self so much before ; altogether it was strange, 
 tempting her half to laugh, half to cry ; but 
 that was all. She went down quite composedly 
 to meet Mrs. Stone, who was untying her white 
 Shetland shawl from her head in the hall. Lucy 
 saw that Mrs. Ford was peeping from the parlour 
 door at the visitor, with something like a scowl 
 upon her face. Mrs. Ford distrusted and feared 
 the schoolmistress; she thought her capable of 
 marrying old Trevor, notwithstanding his years, * 
 and of dissipating Lucy's fortune, and perhaps 
 raising up rivals to little Jock in his sister's 
 affections ; for Lucy's affections were all he had 
 to look to, Mrs. Ford was aware, and she thought 
 it was a wicked shame.
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 151 
 
 " I hope you are better than when I saw you 
 last," Mrs. Stone said, casting a quick glance 
 around her. She knew everything very well by 
 sight in Mr. Trevor's not very comfortable room, 
 the white silky mats, the blue curtains, the 
 little table groaniug under that tea-service, 
 which was easy to see weighed as many ounces 
 as a tea-service could be made to weigh. How 
 much more comfortable, she could not but think, 
 the rich old man might have been made ; but 
 then he did not know any better, and Lucy did 
 not know any better ; they were used to it : 
 they liked this as well as the best. What a 
 blessing for Lucy that as long as she was young 
 enough to be trained she had fallen into good 
 hands ! Mrs. Stone took the big easy chair which 
 Lucy rolled forward to the other side of the fire, 
 and sat down after that greeting. She saw more 
 clearly than Lucy did the excitement in old Mr. 
 Trevor's eyes. What was it? An additional 
 glass of wine after dinner, Mrs. Stone thought, 
 a very small matter would be enough to upset an 
 old man sedentary and crippled as old Trevor was.
 
 152 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 "Never was better in my life," he said ; " that 
 is I am getting old, and my legs are not good 
 for much, as you know, ma'am ; but thank God 
 I have plenty to keep my mind occupied and 
 interested, and that is the great thing, that is 
 the great thing — at my age." 
 
 "Always thinking about Lucy," Mrs. Stone 
 said. 
 
 "Yes, always about Lucy. She is worth it, 
 ma'am : a girl with her prospects is something 
 worth thinking about. She has all the world 
 before her, she has the ball at her foot." 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Trevor, that is what we always 
 think when we are young ; everything that is 
 good is going to happen to us, and nothing 
 that is evil. We think we can choose for our- 
 selves, and make our lives for ourselves." 
 
 " And so she shall," said old Trevor, " ay, 
 that she shall. I beg your pardon, ma'am, but 
 when I speak of Lucy it isn't merely as a little 
 bit of a girl with her life before her. I think 
 of the place she is to take, and the power she 
 will have in her hands."
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 153 
 
 u You mean her fortune, Mr. Trevor. Dear 
 child, give me a cup of tea. You think it is 
 not a bad thing to talk so much to her about 
 her fortune V 9 
 
 "No, ma'am," said the old man, "on the 
 contrary, the very best thing possible. It would 
 be too great a weight for anyone not used to 
 it. You know it fills my mind night and day. 
 I've got to prepare her for it, and put all 
 straight for her as far as I can. There is many 
 a great person that has not the weight on her 
 shoulders that little thing will have, and that 
 is why I sent for you." 
 
 " Asked me to come and take tea," said Mrs. 
 Stone, smiling. "No sugar, my dear. Yes, 
 no doubt we have to train her for her future 
 responsibilities. I do it by trying to make her 
 a good girl, Mr. Trevor, and I think I have 
 succeeded," the lady added, putting her hand 
 affectionately on the girl's shoulder. Lucy, 
 standing between the two, with the cup of tea 
 in one hand and a plateful of cake in the other, 
 looked as completely unexcited by all this talk
 
 154 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 about her, and as unlike a personage of vast 
 importance, as personages of importance often 
 contrive to do. 
 
 " She is a good girl by nature," said her 
 father, somewhat sharply. " I want to tell, 
 Ma'am, of a trust I have appointed you to in 
 my will — along with others," he added hastily, 
 "along with others. I have arranged that in 
 case of Lucy's marriage " 
 
 " Had not you better step downstairs a little, 
 my dear, and just see whether Jane is 
 waiting in the hall f ' Mrs. Stone said hurriedly. 
 " Perhaps Mrs. Ford would allow her, as it is so 
 cold, to go downstairs." 
 
 " You need not send her away," said old 
 Trevor, grimly, " she knows all about it. I 
 don't want her to be taken by surprise when I 
 die. I want her to know all that is in store for 
 her." 
 
 " But about her marriage, my dear Mr. Trevor ; 
 at seventeen these ideas come too quickly of 
 themselves." 
 
 " I tell you, Ma'am, Lucy is not like common
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 155 
 
 girls," he said testily ; " when a woman's in a 
 great position, she has to learn many things 
 that otherwise might be kept from her. What 
 had the Queen to do, I would like to know? 
 Settle all her marriage herself, whatever anyone 
 might think." 
 
 " Poor young lady ! I used to hear my mother 
 say that her heart bled for her. But you don't 
 compare our Lucy with Her Majesty, Mr. Trevor ? 
 Dear Lucy ! though she were the richest girl in 
 England, it would still be a little different from 
 the Queen." 
 
 "Madam," said old Trevor, solemnly, ' ; so 
 far as I am aware she will be the richest girl in 
 England, and therefore surrounded by dangers ; 
 so I've devised a scheme for her safety, and I 
 have put you on the committee. If you will 
 wait a moment till I have got my spectacles I 
 will read it all out to you here." 
 
 Mrs. Stone was the third person to whom that 
 wonderful paragraph had been read. She listened 
 with surprise, gradually rising into consterna- 
 tion. When she saw, with the corner of her
 
 156 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 eye, Lucy coming softly from behind the 
 shelter of the screen, she made an imperative 
 gesture, without looking round, to send her 
 away. The girl obeyed with a smile. Why 
 should she be sent away ? she had already heard 
 it all. 
 
 She went outside and sat down upon 
 the stair to wait. The draught that swept up 
 the well of the staircase did not affect Lucy ; 
 her blood, though it flowed so tranquilly through 
 her veins, was young and kept her warm. She 
 had given up easily the attempt she had made 
 to influence her father, and now she half 
 laughed to herself at the fuss they all made 
 about herself. What were they making such a 
 fuss about? The importance her father attached 
 to all her future proceedings, was to Lucy just 
 about as sensible as Mrs. Stone's precautions 
 for preventing her hearing something she knew 
 perfectly ; but she could afford to smile at 
 both. 
 
 What did it matter? Lucy felt that every-
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 157 
 
 thing would go on all the same, that to-day 
 would be as yesterday, and life quite a 
 simple, easy business, whatever they might 
 say.
 
 158 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 a great Temptation. 
 
 IlHE important communication made to her 
 by Mr. Trevor made a great impression 
 upon the mind of Mrs. Stone, but it was an 
 impression of a confusing kind, disturbing all 
 her previous plans and thoughts. It had been 
 her intention, ever since Lucy was placed in 
 her care, to take a decided part in the shaping 
 of the girl's life. Her imagination had been 
 roused by the situation altogether — a young 
 creature, simple, pliable, and unformed, with 
 no relations who had any real right to guide 
 her, and with a great fortune — what might 
 not be made of such a charge ! It was not
 
 A GREAT TEMPTATION 159 
 
 with any covetous inclination to employ her 
 pupil's wealth to her own advantage that Mrs. 
 Stone had determined by every means in her 
 power to acquire an influence over Lucy. She 
 was much too high-minded, too proud, for any- 
 thing of the sort. No doubt there was an 
 alloy, if not of selfishness, at least of self- 
 regard, in her higher motive, but the worst she 
 would have done would have been to carry out 
 some pet projects of her own by Lucy's help, 
 not to enrich herself. She thought (perhaps), 
 or rather without thinking was aware, that her 
 own importance would be increased by her in- 
 fluence over the heiress; but nothing in the 
 shape of personal aggrandizement was present 
 to her thoughts, even by inference. Mr. Trevor's 
 communication however disturbed her mind in 
 the most uncomfortable way. When you are 
 contemplating a vague influence of a general 
 kind, to be gradually and with trouble acquired, 
 it is demoralizing to have a definite power 
 suddenly thrust into your hands ; and it is 
 hardly possible to refrain from exercising that
 
 160 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 power, were it but for the sake of the novelty 
 and unexpected character of it, en attendant the 
 larger influence to be acquired hereafter. As 
 Mrs. Stone sat in front of Mr. Trevor's fire 
 listening to him, with a ringing in her ears of 
 sudden excitement, holding her cup of tea in 
 her hand, with external calm, yet feeling every 
 pulse flutter, there suddenly appeared before 
 her bewildered eyes, not written on the wall 
 like Belshazzar's warning, but hanging in the 
 air without any material support, like an illu- 
 minated scroll, in big luminous letters, the name 
 which her sister had suggested : the name 
 of Frank — F RAN K— but bigger, a great deaj 
 bigger, than any capitals, dazzling her eyes 
 with the glow in them. Her first feeling was 
 alarm and a kind of horror. It was all she 
 could do to restrain the outcry that rose to her 
 lips. She started so that she spilled her tea, which 
 was hot, so that she started still more ; but upon 
 this little accident she put the best face possible. 
 "It is nothing, my love, nothing," she said, 
 when Lucy hastened to her rescue ; " only a
 
 A GREAT TEMPTATION. 161 
 
 little awkwardness on my part, and ray old 
 black silk won't hurt." She looked up with a 
 smile in Lucy's face, when lo ! the appearance 
 sailed into the air over Lucy's head, and hung 
 there magically, almost touching the girl's fair 
 hair. " How awkward I am," Mrs. Stone cried, 
 looking quite pale and spilling more tea. She 
 thought it was something diabolical, a piece of 
 witchcraft; but it cannot be supposed that it 
 was an easy matter to drive it out of her 
 thoughts. She scarcely knew what happened 
 afterwards, till she had bidden the Trevors 
 good night and found herself in the muddy 
 bit of road which led to the White House, and 
 got rid, in the darkness, of that startling legend. 
 Was it diabolical, or was it a suggestion from 
 heaven ? Perhaps it would have been more 
 near the mark if she had remembered that it 
 was a suggestion from Miss Southwood, which 
 she had crushed with infinite scorn when it was 
 made ; but Mrs. Stone did not, or would not, 
 remember this. The night was damp and foggy, 
 and the lights of her own house appeared to her 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 all blurred and hazy, with prismatic haloes 
 round them, like so many sickly moons, and the 
 intermediate bit of road was fitfully lighted by 
 the lantern carried by her maid, which shone in 
 the dark puddles and glistening wet herbage. 
 But Mrs. Stone was scarcely conscious where 
 she was. as she picked her way lightly from 
 one bit of solid path to another; her mind was 
 so full that she might have been in Regent 
 Street, or on a Swiss mountain. Frank ! was 
 it a diabolical suggestion, or a revelation from 
 heaven ? 
 
 All was quiet in the White House when its 
 mistress got in. It was ten o'clock, and the 
 doves were in their nests, which, to be sure, is 
 but an ornamental way of saying that all the 
 girls had gone to bed. The light burned low in 
 the hall, as it burned all night, for Miss South- 
 wood thought light was " a protection" to a 
 lonely house ; and the open door of the drawing- 
 room, in which it was the custom of the ladies 
 to sit with their pupils after tea, showing some- 
 thing of the disorderly look of a room deserted
 
 A GREAT TEMTTATTOX. 163 
 
 for the night, notwithstanding the tidiness with 
 which all the little work-baskets were put out of 
 the way. Beside that open door, however, was 
 another still shining with firelight and lamp- 
 light, where a little supper-tray had just been 
 placed on the table, and a pretty silver cover 
 and crystal decanter, not to speak of a delicate 
 fragrance of cooking, showed that the mistress 
 of the house was pleasantly provided for. No 
 mystery was made of this little supper, which 
 everybody knew was Mrs. Stone's favourite 
 meal ; but all the girls had a curiosity about it, 
 and the governesses felt themselves injured that 
 they were not privileged to share its delights. 
 Mrs. Stone, however, stoutly defended her 
 privacy at this hour of repose. She sat 
 down with a sigh of relief, opposite to her 
 sister, who presided at the little white-covered 
 table. 
 
 " You are tired," said Miss Southwood, 
 sympathetically, " and that girl has forgotten as 
 usual to put the claret to the fire. But this 
 bird is very well cooked, and the bread-crumbs 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 are brown and crisp, just as you like them. 
 Why was it he sent for you ? something quite 
 trifling, I suppose. I wonder how parents 
 can reconcile themselves to the trouble they 
 give." 
 
 "It was not a trifle, it was about Lucy's 
 marriage," said the other, " or rather about pre- 
 venting Lucy's m.arriage, I think. I am to have 
 a finger in the pie." 
 
 " You! Old Mr. Trevor is very queer, I 
 know ; is he going to take up that odious French 
 system, and arrange it without any reference to 
 the girl ? But surely, Maria, you would 
 never countenance an iniquity like that?" 
 
 " Iniquity ! are you sure it is an iniquity ? 
 In some points of view I approve of it greatly. 
 Do you think I could not choose better husbands 
 for the girls than they will ever choose for them- 
 selves ? How is a girl to exercise any judgment 
 in the matter? She takes the first man that 
 comes, perhaps, or the first fool she thinks 
 nice-looking, and what is there sacred in 
 that?"
 
 A GREAT TEMPTATION. 165 
 
 " I thought you were always the one to stand 
 up for love," said Miss Southwood. " I never 
 pretend to know anything about it my- 
 self." 
 
 " Oh, when there is love" said Mrs. Stone, 
 " that is another thing. But what do they know 
 about love ? It is fancy, it is not love ; how 
 should they know ?" 
 
 " I am sure / can't tell," answered the un- 
 married sister, very demurely, " don't ask me to 
 give any opinion ; you are the one that ought to 
 know; and I have always heard you say, and 
 understood you to uphold " 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes !" cried the other, impatiently ; 
 " when a thing has been said once, one is held 
 to it for ever, in this unintelligent way. You 
 never consider how unlike one case is to 
 another, or take the circumstances into account. 
 Besides, all I said referred to a sentiment already 
 formed. I would never tear two young people 
 asunder that were fond of each other, because 
 one was rich and the other poor ; that js a 
 thing I could never be guilty of. But this is a
 
 166 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 very different matter. To take care that a girl 
 like Lucy Trevor does not make a foolish choice, 
 or even," said Mrs. Stone, with a certain 
 solemnity and deliberateness of utterance, "to 
 direct her thoughts to some one eminently suit- 
 able-" 
 
 Miss Southwood looked at her with eager 
 eyes. After the manner in which her sug- 
 gestion had been received at their former inter- 
 view, she did not venture to repeat it ; but she 
 knew by experience that a suggestion is some- 
 times very badly received to-day, and accepted 
 as a matter of course, or even energetically acted 
 upon, to-morrow ; so she said nothing, but with 
 eager, though concealed, scrutiny, watched her 
 sister's looks. Finding, however, that Mrs. 
 Stone said nothing more, but pensively eat her 
 chicken, she resumed after a while her in- 
 quiries. 
 
 " I suppose Mr. Trevor has been consulting 
 you," she said, " and I am sure it was the very 
 best thing he could do. But, after all, Lucy is 
 only seventeen, poor little thing ! and a good
 
 A GREAT TEMPTATION. 167 
 
 girl, with no nonsense about her. Does he 
 want to marry her off so young, the poor 
 
 child r 
 
 " I think," said Mrs. Stone, reflectively, turn- 
 ing her chair to the fire, " he does not want her to 
 marry at all." 
 
 " Oh !" cried Miss Southwood in dismay. She 
 had not married herself : she professed at once, 
 when the subject was mentioned, her entire 
 incompetence to give any opinion ; but the idea 
 that a girl's friends should wish her not to 
 marry filled her mind with an amazement 
 beyond words. The naivete of her conviction 
 on this point betrayed itself in her unfeigned 
 wonder. She could not believe it. " I sup- 
 pose," she said, "that he wants to keep the 
 money in the family ; and that means that he 
 will marry her to her cousin, that young man, 
 that Mr. Rainy." 
 
 " Her cousin ! you mean the certificated school- 
 master, the Dissenter." 
 
 "Oh, he is not a Dissenter: we met him at
 
 168 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the Rectory ; he is a very rising young man, and 
 clever, and " 
 
 " You may save yourself the trouble of 
 enumerating his good qualities. I can't tell how 
 you know them ; but Lucy shall never marry 
 the schoolmaster, I will refuse my con- 
 sent." 
 
 " You will refuse your consent ? and what will 
 that matter V ' Miss Southwood said. 
 
 Mrs. Stone made no particular answer. She 
 put her feet upon the comfortable velvet cushion 
 before the fire, and smiled. She did not care 
 to enter upon explanations, but she had made 
 up her mind. The fire was bright, the bird had 
 been good, and her modest glass of claret was 
 excellent. She was altogether in a balmy 
 humour, willing to enjoy the many comforts of 
 her life, and to feel benevolently towards her 
 neighbour. 
 
 " I think you are right," she said, " and per- 
 haps I am prejudiced. He is a rising young 
 man. We have met him two or three times at 
 the Rectory, so he cannot be a Dissenter ; but
 
 A GREAT TEMPTATION. 169 
 
 he is not a gentleman either. How should he 
 be, being one of those Rainys? I shouldn't 
 wonder if it was to keep him out." 
 
 " If what was to keep him out V 
 
 " By the way," said Mrs. Stone, " I have a 
 letter to write. Don't let me keep you out of 
 bed, Ellen. I am very much behind in 
 family correspondence. Have any of the St. 
 Clairs ever been at the White House since we 
 came here ? I can't recollect." 
 
 " Not one," said Miss Southwood, with a beat- 
 ing heart. " Not one ! and I have often thought, 
 Maria, considering all things, and that they 
 have no father, poor things, and are not very 
 well off — and so nice, both sisters and bro- 
 thers " 
 
 " One does not want so many arguments. 
 Frank may come and pay us a visit if he likes," 
 said Mrs. Stone with much amiability. But it 
 was not till the morning, when she came down 
 first, as she always did, and put the letter, 
 which had been left on Mrs. Stone's private 
 writing-table, ready for the early post, in the
 
 170 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 letter-bag, that Miss Southwood had the satis- 
 faction of seeing that it was addressed to the 
 favourite nephew, whose name she had not ven- 
 tured to pronounce for a second time. Mrs. 
 Stone had not been inattentive to the vision, 
 the intimation, whether from heaven or the other 
 place. He was to come and try his fortune in 
 those lists. 
 
 Miss Southwood went about her occupa- 
 tions all day as if she trod on air; but she 
 kept her lips tightly shut, and never asked a 
 question. She was discretion itself. As for Mrs. 
 Stone, after she had done it, many doubts sug- 
 gested themselves. It was not for nothing, not 
 by mere vice of temperament that she obeyed 
 her own impulses so readily. Like all impulsive 
 people, she was subject to cold fits as well as 
 hot; but like many other impulsive people, she 
 had learned that it was her best policy to obey 
 the first imperious movement of nature. The 
 thing was done, at all events, before the struggle 
 of judgment began. And the answer she made
 
 A GREAT TEMPTATION. 171 
 
 to her own objections was a mysterious one. 
 " Why not I, as well as Lady Kandolph," was 
 what she said to herself.
 
 172 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHATTER. 
 
 " "PvO you know," said Katie Russell, " there 
 J-J is a gentleman in the house ? None of 
 
 us have seen him ; but he came yesterday. He 
 
 is young, and tall, and nice-looking. He is their 
 
 nephew. Mademoiselle says it is quite improper. 
 
 Of course, she oughtn't to say so ; and the girls 
 
 don't know what to think: for you know it is 
 
 queer." 
 
 " Why is it queer V said Lucy. " If he is 
 
 their nephew, he may surely come to see them. 
 
 If they had a son, he would live here." 
 
 " I don't think so," said Katie promptly. 
 
 " Oh no ! if they had a dozen sons, not while
 
 CHATTER. 173 
 
 the girls are here. It would never do. I have 
 been at other schools, and I know. I have spent 
 my life at schools, I think," the girl said with 
 an impatient shrug of her shoulders, " and I 
 know Mademoiselle is quite right, though she 
 oughtn't to say so. I wonder, Lucy, if I will 
 be as governessy when I am old ? They almost 
 always are." 
 
 Lucy could not follow this quick digression. 
 She gazed at her friend with wondering eyes. 
 " You always jump so," she said. " Which am 
 I to answer— about the gentleman, or about — " 
 
 " Oh ! never mind the gentleman. I only told 
 you — it can't matter very much to me," said 
 Katie. " It is for Maud and Lily, and girls of 
 that set that it is not right, or you — Is it true 
 that you are to have a great fortune, Lucy ? I 
 always wanted to ask you — but I did not 
 like—" 
 
 " Yes, I believe so," said Lucy quietly, " why 
 shouldn't you like ? Papa takes a great deal of 
 trouble about it ; but it does not matter so much 
 to me. One is just the same one's self, whether
 
 174 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 one is rich or poor; it will give a great deal 
 of trouble. So I don't care for it for my 
 part." 
 
 " Oh ! I should care for it," cried Katie. " I 
 should not mind the trouble. How delightful 
 it must be to be really, really rich! I should 
 give— I should do — oh I don't know what I 
 shouldn't do! The use of being rich," Katie 
 added sententiously, " is that you can do as you 
 please — go where you please, be as kind to 
 everybody as you please ; help people, enjoy 
 yourself, buy everything you like, and yet 
 always have something. Oh !" she said, clasp- 
 ing her hands, " to have to think and think 
 whether you can buy yourself a pair of gloves — 
 not to be able to get a cab when your mother 
 is tired ; and to grow old, and to grow gover- 
 nessy like Mademoiselle — " 
 
 " Mademoiselle is very nice, Katie. Don't say 
 anything against her." 
 
 "/ say anything against her! I adore her! 
 but she is governessy, how can she help it, poor 
 old darling ? Her mind is full of the girls' little
 
 CHATTER. 175 
 
 ways, and what they mean by this and by that, 
 Lucy," said the girl stopping short to give 
 greater emphasis to her words. u If we ever 
 see each other when I am an old governess like 
 Mademoiselle — be sure you remember fo tell me 
 when you see me worrying, that the girls mean 
 nothing by it— nothing /" This is the 21st of 
 February. It is my birthday — I am nineteen. 
 Tell me to recollect that I said they meant 
 nothing — and that it's true." 
 
 " Are you really nineteen to-day ?" said Lucy. 
 " Older than I—" 
 
 " More than a year older. I wonder," said Katie 
 with that patronage and superiority which the poor 
 often show to the rich, " whether, when you are 
 fifty, you will know as much of the world as 
 I do now r 
 
 Lucy's companion was the governess-pupil, the 
 one among the band of girls whose society her father 
 had counselled her not to seek. Perhaps there was 
 something of the perversity of youth in the pre- 
 ference which, notwithstanding this advice, Lucy 
 felt for the girl whose friendship old Mr. Trevor
 
 176 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 had decided could be of no use whatever to her. 
 Lucy was not nearly so clever as Katie Russell, 
 who was already a great help in the school, and 
 earning the lessons which she shared with the 
 more advanced pupils. But Lucy was by no 
 means so sure of .her inferiority in point of ex- 
 perience as her companion was. She knew, if 
 not the expedients of poverty, yet of eco- 
 nomy through Mrs. Ford's example, and she 
 knew many details of a lower level of existence, 
 lower than anything Katie was acquainted with ; 
 and even the shadow of her own future power 
 which had lain upon her from her childhood had 
 stood in the stead of knowledge to Lucy, teach- 
 ing her many things ; but she was a quiet person, 
 thinking much more than she spoke; and she 
 made no reply to this imputation of ignorance, 
 though she thought it a mistake. She replied 
 with a little closer pressure of her friend's arm. 
 " Why are you so sure of being an old gover- 
 ness ? You will marry— most likely the first of 
 all of us." 
 
 " Oh ! no, no, don't you know there are a
 
 CHATTER. 177 
 
 million more women in England than men ? It 
 is in all the papers. Some of us will marry' 
 you, for instance ; but there must be a propor- 
 tion — say five out of twenty, that's not much." 
 said Katie, knitting her soft brows, " who never 
 will; and I shall be one of them. For fun," she 
 said, throwing gravity to the winds, " let us 
 guess who the other four will be." 
 
 " Me," said Lucy with a gentle composure and 
 indifference alike to matrimony and to grammar. 
 " I think that is what papa would like best — " 
 
 " That is absurd," said Katie, " you ! you will 
 have a hundred proposals before you are out a 
 year. You will be the very first." 
 
 " Put me down, however," Lucy repeated. " It 
 will be rather a good thing to be kept from get- 
 ting married, if it is as you say. It will help to 
 set the balance straight. There will be my 
 gentleman for one of you." 
 
 " You do not mean that you are to be kept 
 from marrying," Katie cried aghast. This made 
 a still greater impression on her mind than it 
 had done on Miss Southwood's, and it suggested 
 
 VOL. I. n
 
 178 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 to her a sudden chivalrous idea of rescue. Katie 
 too had a Frank, a cousin, between whom and 
 herself there had existed from the earliest times 
 a baby tenderness. If ever she was married, 
 Katie had tacitly concluded that he would be 
 " the gentleman." They might set up a school 
 together ; they might work together in various 
 ways. It was a vague probability, yet one in 
 which most of the light of Katie's future lay. 
 But suddenly it flashed upon her, all in a mo- 
 ment, w 7 hat a chance, what an opening was this 
 for any man. Frank was poor; they were all 
 poor; but if he could be persuaded to step in 
 and save Lucy from the celibacy to which she 
 seemed to think herself condemned, Frank's 
 fortune would be made. It was the basest cal- 
 culation in the world ; and yet nothing could 
 have been more innocent — nay generous. It 
 blanched Katie's cheeks for the moment; but 
 filled her mind with a whirl of thoughts. What 
 a thing it would be for him and all the family ! 
 If the dream should come to pass, Katie felt 
 that she herself might give in at once, and make
 
 CHATTER. 179 
 
 up her mind to grow old and governessy like 
 Mademoiselle ; but what did that matter, she 
 asked herself heroically. For a second, indeed, 
 she paused to think whether her brother, Bertie, 
 might not answer the purpose without costing 
 herself so much ; but anticipated sacrifice is 
 the purest delight of misery at nineteen, and 
 she rather preferred to think that this great 
 advantage to her cousin and her friend would be. 
 purchased at the cost of her happiness. And 
 Frank himself might not like the idea at first ; 
 her great consolation was that it was almost cer- 
 tain Frank would not like it. But he must learn 
 to subdue his inclinations, she thought proudly 
 — would not she do so for his sake? If other 
 people were content to make that sacrifice, why 
 should not he? And what a difference it would 
 make, if a stream of comfort — of money and all 
 that money can buy, ease of mind and freedom 
 from debt, and power to do what one would — 
 came suddenly pouring in to the family, setting 
 everything right that was wrong, and smooth- 
 ing away all difficulties ! To despise money is a 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 fine thing ; but how few can do it ! Katie did 
 not despise it all. She forgot her companion 
 while she walked on dreamily by her side, think- 
 ing of her fortune. Mercenary little wretch the 
 moralist would say ; and yet she was not 
 mercenary at all. 
 
 The girls were walking across the Common 
 by themselves. It was part of Mrs. Stone's 
 enlightened system that she allowed them to do 
 so, in cases where the parents did not interfere. 
 And so far as these two were concerned, even 
 the consent of the parents was unnecessary ; for 
 was not Katie Russell, though only eighteen, a 
 governess in the bud? and, accordingly, quite 
 capable of acting as chaperon when necessary. 
 Poor little Katie ! this was one of the mild in- 
 dignities of her lot that she felt most. Her lot 
 was not at all a bad one at Mrs. Stone's, where 
 the head of the establishment backed her up 
 quietly as indeed the one of her inmates with 
 whom she was most in sympathy — and when the 
 girls were " nice." Girls are not all " nice," any 
 more than are any other class of the community,
 
 CHATTER. 181 
 
 and Katie had known what it was to be snubbed 
 and scorned, and even insulted. But happily 
 this was not the fashion at the White House. 
 Still one mark of her inferior position remained 
 in the fact that Katie, though so young, and 
 one of the prettiest of the band, was, being 
 half a governess, qualified to accompany her 
 peers in the character of chaperon. It was not 
 quite clear that she might not be at that moment 
 taking care of Lucy, who was less than a year 
 her junior ; but happily this idea had not crossed 
 her mind. It was Sunday, which was a day of 
 great freedom at the White House — a day given 
 over (after due attention to all religious duties, 
 need it be said? for Mrs. Stone knew what was 
 expected of her, and you may be sure took all 
 her doves to church with the most undeviating 
 regularity) to confidences, to talks, to letter- 
 writings. Some of the girls were covering sheets 
 of note-paper with the most intimate revelations, 
 some were chattering in corners, some reading 
 story-books. Story-books are not necessarily 
 novels — Mrs. Stone made a clever distinction.
 
 182 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 There was nothing in three volumes upon her 
 purified and dignified shelves ; but a book in one 
 volume had a very good chance of coming 
 within her tolerant reading of the word Story. 
 And some were out, perambulating about the 
 garden, where the first crocuses were beginning 
 to bloom, or crossing the Common by those de- 
 vious little paths half hidden in heather and all 
 kinds of wild plants which were bad for boots 
 and dresses— but very pleasant otherwise. It 
 was along one of these that Lucy Trevor and her 
 companion were wandering. The mossy turf was 
 very green, betraying the moisture beneath ; and 
 the great bushes of heather, with all the withered 
 bloom stiffened upon them, stood up like 
 mimic forests from the treacherous grass. Wild 
 bushes of gorse, with here and there a solitary 
 speck of yellow, a premature bud upon them 
 interspersed their larger growth here and there. 
 The frost had all melted away. In the little 
 marshy pools, the water was clear and caught 
 glimpses of a sky faintly blue. One willow on 
 the very verge of the Common had hung
 
 CHATTER. 183 
 
 out its tassels, those prophecies of coming life. 
 There was a scent of Spring in the air. " In 
 the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to—" 
 love, the poet says ; and so, perhaps, does a girl's. 
 But before either are warmly awakened to that 
 interest, Spring touches them thrilling with a pro- 
 fusion of thought and planning and anticipation, 
 not so distinct as love.. The young creatures 
 feel the sap of life mounting within them. Oft- 
 times they know nothing more, and have formed 
 no definite idea either of what they want, or 
 why ; but their minds are running over with a 
 flood of living. Their plans go lightly skimming 
 through the air, now poising a moment on a 
 branch, and again flashing widely on devious 
 wing to all the points of the compass like so 
 many birds. There was no immediate change 
 necessary in the placid course of their school-girl 
 existence; but they leapt forward to meet the 
 future with all the force of their energies. Yet, 
 perhaps, it was only one of them who did this. 
 Lucy was too calm in the certainty of the changes 
 that sooner or later would happen to her — changes
 
 184 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 already mapped out and arranged for her, 
 as she was well aware— to be able to give herself 
 up to these indefinite pleasures of imagination. 
 But Katie leaped at her future with the fervour of 
 a fresh imagination. She made up her mind to 
 sacrifice herself, and give Lucy her cousin in 
 less time than many would take to decide 
 whether they should give up a ribbon. She sank 
 into silence for a little time w^hile she was pon- 
 dering it, but never from any indecision ; only 
 because in her rapid foresight of all that was 
 necessary, she did not quite see how the first 
 step —the introduction of these tw r o to each other 
 was to be brought about. 
 
 Just then the girls became aware of two other 
 figures, bearing down upon them from the other 
 side of the Common— two larger personages 
 making their slight youth look what it was, 
 something not much more than childish. There 
 was Mrs. Stone and the unknown gentleman who 
 had arrived at the White House, to the scandal 
 of the old governess, last night. When the girls 
 perceived this, they mutually gave each other's
 
 CHATTER. 185 
 
 arras a warning pressure. " Oh, look, here he 
 is!" said Katie, and, "Is that the gentleman?" 
 Lucy said. The encounter brought to the former 
 a quick flush of excitement. She wondered a 
 little, on her own account, who the gentleman 
 was ; for an apparition of such an unusual de- 
 scription in a girl's school had naturally excited 
 all the inmates. A man under Mrs. Stone's 
 roof! Men were common enough things at 
 home, and aroused no feelings of curiosity or 
 alarm. But here it was quite different. Whence 
 came he, and what had he come for ? But besides 
 this, there was another source of interest in 
 Katie's thoughts. As she conceived her own plot, 
 a glimmering sense of the other came upon her 
 by instinct. Why had this wonderful occurrence, 
 this arrival of a gentleman, happened at Mrs. 
 Stone's? Mrs. Stone knew all about Lucy's for- 
 tune, and the wicked scheme invented by her father 
 (of which Katie knew nothing except by lively 
 guesses) to keep her unmarried. And straight- 
 way the gentleman had come ! She watched 
 him anxiously as he approached. He was like
 
 186 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Mrs. Stone, and he was not unlike the smiling 
 and gracious face in a hairdresser's window, com- 
 placent in waxwork satisfaction. He was large, 
 tall, with fine black hair, whiskers and mous- 
 tache, and a good complexion. He had some- 
 thing of that air of self-display — not vanity or 
 conceit, but simply expansion and spreading out 
 of himself which is characteristic of large men 
 used to the company of many women. Katie 
 pressed her friend's arm more and more closely 
 as they approached. 
 
 " What do you think of him P she said. " I 
 wonder if they will speak to us. Will Mrs. 
 Stone introduce us ? If she does, T know what 
 I shall think." 
 
 " What shall you think f said Lucy, across 
 whose mind no glimmering of the cause of this 
 unusual visit had flown. She watched him coming 
 very placidly. " Mrs. Stone will not stop. She 
 never does when she has any stranger with her. 
 Who is it, Katie % I never heard that they had 
 any brother." 
 
 "It is their nephew," Katie said, with some-
 
 CHATTER. 187 
 
 thing of that knowledge which is what she herself 
 called governessy, that minute acquaintance with 
 all details of a family which people in any kind 
 of dependence are so apt to attain. Mademoiselle 
 was her authority, Mademoiselle, who, though 
 she was " nice," had yet the foibles of her posi- 
 tion, and a certain jealous interest, not alto- 
 gether unkind, yet too curious to be entirely 
 benevolent, about all her employer's works and 
 ways. " He was brought up for the Church, 
 but he has not gone into the Church. Doesn't 
 he look like a parson ? When a man has been 
 brought up in that way, he never gets the better 
 of it. He always looks like a spoilt clergy- 
 man." 
 
 " I don't think he looks like a clergyman at 
 all," said Lucy, " nor spoilt either." 
 
 " Oh, you admire him ! I ought to have known 
 you are just the kind of girl to like a barber's 
 block man. Our Frank," said Katie, with some 
 vehemence, " is not so big — he has not half 
 such a shirt-front; but I am sure he has more 
 strength. You should see him throwing things.
 
 188 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IR ENGLAND. 
 
 He won two cups for that — and one for running," 
 she added with a sigh. She already felt some- 
 thing of the pang with which these cherished 
 cups would be put, with their owner, into 
 another's possession. In imagination, she had 
 sometimes seen them arranged on a humble side- 
 board in a little house, with which she her- 
 self, Katie, had the closest connection. But 
 that was the merest dream, and not to be con- 
 sidered for a moment when the interest of the 
 one and the happiness of the other were con- 
 cerned. 
 
 "Frank! who is Frank?" said Lucy, "you 
 never told me of him before." 
 
 " Oh ! Frank is my cousin. There never was 
 any occasion," said Katie, with a slightly queru- 
 lous tone, which Lucy did not understand. She 
 looked with a little wonder at her friend, then 
 set down her perturbation to the score of Mrs. 
 Stone, who was now very near. The girls with- 
 drew from each other to make room, leaving the 
 narrow path clear between. Mrs. Stone an- 
 swered this courtesy by stepping forward in front
 
 CHATTER. 189 
 
 of the gentleman with a gracious smile upon 
 her face. 
 
 M Where are you going?" she said. " I think, 
 my dear children, it is going to rain. You must 
 soon turn back ; and the Common is very wet. 
 After you have got back and changed your boots 
 come to my room to tea." And then she passed 
 on with little amical nods and smiles. The 
 gentleman was not introduced to them, but he 
 took off his hat as he followed behind Mrs. Stone, 
 a courtesy which is always agreeable to girls 
 who have only lately ceased to be little girls, 
 and come within the range of dignified saluta- 
 tions. Even Lucy's tranquil soul owned a faint 
 flutter of pleasure. It was a distinct honour too 
 to be asked to Mrs. Stone's room to tea, and to 
 know that they were to be introduced into the 
 society of the " gentleman" added a little addi- 
 tional excitement. They walked only a very 
 little way further, mindful at once of the advice 
 and the invitation. 
 
 " I wonder if any of the others will be there," 
 said Katie. She was somewhat elated although
 
 190 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 she was suspicious, and in a state of half resist- 
 ance to Mrs. Stone and the rival Frank, whose 
 rivalry the little schemer felt by instinct. As 
 for Lucy, the object of all this plotting, she 
 suspected nothing. She even felt a little guilty 
 in the pleasure to which she looked forward. 
 To be asked to Mrs. Stone's room to tea on 
 Sunday evening was a distinction of which all 
 the girls were proud. It was like an invitation 
 from the Queen, a command which was not to 
 be disregarded ; but yet she had a little uneasi- 
 ness in her mind, thinking of her little brother, 
 who would be disappointed. Even for Mrs. 
 Stone, the sovereign of this small world, she 
 did not like to break faith with little Jock.
 
 191 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 AX AFTERNOON TEA. 
 
 MRS. STONE'S room was fitted up iu the 
 latest, which I need not say is far from 
 being the newest fashion. It would indeed have 
 been an insult to her to say that anything in it 
 was new. Mr. Morris had only just begun to 
 reign over the homes of the aesthetic classes ; 
 but Mrs. Stone was well in advance of her age, 
 and her walls were covered with a very large 
 pattern of acanthus leaves in several shades of 
 green, with curtains as nearly as possible the 
 same in design and colour. She had a number 
 of plates hung about the walls instead of pictures, 
 and here and there gleaming shelves and little
 
 192 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 cabinets full of china, which were a great relief 
 and comfort to the eye. Her chairs were Chip- 
 pendale, need it be said ? and held her visitors 
 upright in a dignified height and security. The 
 room had but one window, which was large, but 
 half filled with designs in glass, and half over- 
 shadowed by a great lime-tree, which was de- 
 lightful in summer, but in February not so 
 delightful. The fire was at the end of the room, 
 and the room was somewhat dark, especially in 
 the afternoon. When the two girls went in, 
 several persons were dimly visible seated in those 
 large and solemn Chippendalian chairs, with 
 hands reposing upon the arms of them, ranged 
 against the walls like Egyptian gods. The 
 colour of one of these figures, though faint in 
 the gloom, was that of Miss Southwood's grey 
 velveteen, her ordinary afternoon dress, and 
 therefore recognisable ; but the others in mascu- 
 line black clothes, with only a vague whiteness 
 for their faces, were mysterious as Isis and 
 Osiris ; and so was a lady with her veil over her 
 face, who sat at the other side of the fire-place,
 
 AN AFTERXOOX TEA. 193 
 
 with the air of a chairwoman at a meeting, high 
 and stately— though she caught a little of the 
 pale afternoon daylight upon her, yet her dark 
 dress and sealskin coat and veil prevented any 
 distinctness of revelation. In this correct and 
 carefully arranged parlour there was one weak 
 point. A woman who is without caprice is 
 unworthy of being called a woman. Instead of 
 herself occupying a Chippendale chair, and 
 having her tea-tray placed upon the tall, slender- 
 limbed Queen Anne table, which stood in readi- 
 ness against the wall, Mrs. Stone chose to make 
 herself the one anachronism in the place. Her 
 chair was a low one in front of the fire ; her 
 tea-table was in proportion — a bit of debased 
 nineteenth century comfort in the midst of 
 the stately grace which she professed to think so 
 much more delightful. Why was this % It was 
 Mrs. Stone's pleasure, and there was no more to 
 be said. She, with her pretty white cap upon her 
 handsome head, seated at the feet of all her 
 silent guests in their high chairs, was not only 
 the central light in the picture, but a kind of 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 humorous commentary upon it; but whether 
 this proceeded from any sense of the joke in her, 
 or was merely the expression of her own deter- 
 mination to please herself, were it even in flat 
 rebellion to her own code, no one could tell. 
 
 "You are just in time," she said, "Lucy and 
 Katie, to give our friends some tea. Don't in- 
 terfere, Frank. I like girls to hand tea. It 
 comes within their province ; and it is a pretty 
 office, which they do far more prettily than you 
 can." 
 
 " That I don't dispute for a moment," said a 
 large round manly baritone, enthroned on high in 
 one of the Chippendale chairs, " and I don't deny 
 that I like to be served by such hands when it is 
 permitted." 
 
 " That is one of the popular fallacies about 
 women," said Mrs. Stone, " and involves the 
 whole question. Our weak surrender of our 
 rights for the pleasure of being waited upon in 
 public, was I suppose one of the consequences of 
 chivalry. According to my theory, it is the 
 business of women to serve. You shoot the
 
 AN AFTERXOON TEA. 195 
 
 birds or kill the deer, Mr. Rushton, as you best 
 can, and we cook it and carve it, and serve it up 
 to you." 
 
 " If this beatitude depends upon my ability to 
 kill the deer or shoot the birds, my dear lady !" 
 said another good-natured voice : which added 
 immediately, " Why, this is Lucy Trevor ! I am 
 very glad to see you. My dear, this is Lucy 
 Trevor. Since she has been at the White House 
 we have scarcely seen her. You girls are made 
 too happy when you get under the charge of Mrs. 
 Stone." 
 
 " Is it you, Lucy V said the lady with the 
 veil ; " come and speak to me, dear. I think it 
 is a year since I have seen you. You have 
 grown up, quite grown up in the time. How 
 these young creatures change! A year does not 
 make much difference in us— but this child has 
 shot up ! And Raymond— you remember your 
 playfellow, Lucy — why, he is a man, as old as 
 his father, giving us advice, if you please ! It is 
 something wonderful. I catch myself laughing 
 out when I hear him discoursing about law. 
 
 2
 
 196 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Raymond giving his opinion, my little boy, my 
 baby ! And I daresay little Lucy has begun to 
 give her opinion too." 
 
 "Lucy is a very good girl," said Mrs. Stone, 
 " she never takes anything upon her. Katie 
 now and then favours us with her ideas as to 
 how the world should be governed." 
 
 " That is right," said Mr. Rnshton, from the 
 darker side. " I like to know what the young 
 people think. It is they who will have it all in 
 their hands one day." 
 
 "But thank heaven they will have changed 
 their minds before that time." 
 
 This was from Miss South wood, who em- 
 phasised her exclamation by getting up to sweep 
 off into the fire-place a few crumbs from her grey 
 velveteen gown. 
 
 " Do you think it is a good thing they should 
 have changed their minds? It seems to me 
 rather a pity. That is why we never have 
 anything new. We all fall into the same jog-trot 
 about the same age." 
 
 " The new is always to be avoided. Don't tell
 
 AN AFTERNOON TEA 197 
 
 me about jog-trot— I wish I were half as sensible 
 as my mother." 
 
 " Arid so do I, Ellen," said Mrs. Stone, taking 
 up the discussion in her own manner with that 
 soft little half blow to begin with. Nobody 
 could tell whether it was directed at her sister, or 
 was an echo of her wish, not even Lucy, who 
 knew her so well, and who stood between her 
 and Mrs. Rushton listening to their talk, but 
 without any impulse on her own part to rush 
 into it as Katie would have done. Katie in the 
 meantime had got out of that graver circle. She 
 had given the large baritone his cup of tea, and 
 now was holding the cake-basket while he 
 selected a piece. Katie was in the light, so much 
 light as there was. She was a fair-haired girl, 
 with just the touch of warmth and colour that 
 Lucy wanted— a little gold in her hair, a deeper 
 blue in her eyes, a tinge of rose on her cheeks : 
 and she had a far warmer sense of fun than 
 Lucy, who would have carried the cake-basket 
 quite demurely without any smile. 
 
 " I hope you will not think this is my fault,"
 
 198 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Mrs. Stone's nephew said in a low tone. " I am 
 bound to obey, as I suppose everyone is here; 
 otherwise I should not sit still and allow myself 
 to be served ; it is not my way, I assure you. 
 And I keep you standing so long. I cannot 
 make up my mind which piece to take. This 
 has the most plums, but that is the larger piece. 
 It always turns out so in this life ; I wonder if 
 you have found that out in your experience, or if 
 things are better managed here." 
 
 " We are not supposed to have any experience 
 at school," said Katie demurely. It was pretty 
 to see her holding the cake-basket. And the rest 
 of the company was occupied with their own 
 conversation. Besides, how was he to know 
 which of them was the heiress % 
 
 " We met you on the Common just now with 
 your friend. It is not a very amusing walk, but 
 it is better than going out in procession, I sup- 
 pose. Does my aunt make you do that? is it 
 part of a young lady's education, as cricket is of 
 a man's ?" - 
 
 " Yes," said Katie. " We are trained to put
 
 AX AFTERNOON TEA. 199 
 
 up with everything that is disagreeable, just as 
 boys are trained to everything that is pleas- 
 ant." 
 
 " Do you think cricket then so pleasant V 
 
 ;i Not to me — but I suppose it is to boys ; and 
 boating and everything of the kind. On our 
 side we are taught quite differently. If there 
 is anything more tiresome than another, more 
 tedious, less likely to please us, that is what we 
 are made to do." 
 
 "My poor aunt! is she a tyrant then with her 
 pupils ? She is not a tyrant for her rela- 
 tions : or at least a very charming, delightful 
 tyrant." 
 
 " I did not mean Mrs. Stone ; she is very 
 kind — even to me : but I have been at other 
 schools. I suppose it is for our good," said Katie 
 with a sigh, " everything that is very disagree- 
 able is for our good ; though I wonder sometimes 
 why the boys should not have a little trial of the 
 same — for I suppose they too have got to put 
 up 'with things that are disagreeable in their 
 life."
 
 200 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " We are supposed," said the baritone, who 
 was becoming quite visible to her, enthroned in 
 his Chippendale chair, " to have most of the 
 disagreeables of life, while you ladies ' who 
 dwell at home at ease ' " 
 
 " Ah !" cried Katie, setting down the cake- 
 basket, "if you would but quote correctly. The 
 man who wrote the song knew a great deal better. 
 It is the gentlemen who live at home at ease. 
 ' To all you ladies now on land,' is what he says ; 
 he knew better. We don't go out to sea like 
 him, but we go through just as much on land, 
 you may be sure," cried the girl, with a sudden 
 flush coming over her face ; " it was not to us 
 he said, ' How little do you think upon the 
 dangers of the seas.' I have got a little 
 brother a sailor," she added half under her 
 breath. 
 
 " I have evidently chosen my illustration 
 badly," said the other with prompt good-humour 
 and a sympathetic tone. "If you have a little 
 brother, I have a big one at sea, so here is some- 
 thing to fraternize upon. Mine is the captain of
 
 AN AFTERNOON TEA. 201 
 
 a big merchantman, an old salt, and does not 
 mind the dangers of the sea." 
 
 " Ah, but mine is a little middy," said Katie, 
 with a smile in her eyes and a tear trembling 
 behind it, " he minds a great deal. He does not 
 like it at all. And mamma and I feel the 
 wind go through and through us whenever it 
 blows." 
 
 " I see," said the gentleman, " these are the 
 disagreeables of life you speak of — imaginary. 
 Probably when he is in a gale you know nothing 
 about it, and the winds that make you tremble 
 have nothing to do with him ; but these are very 
 different, you must acknowledge, from real 
 troubles." 
 
 Katie did not condescend to answer this 
 speech. She gave him a look only, but that 
 spoke volumes. The superiority of experience in 
 it was beyond words. How could he know, a 
 man, well dressed, and well off apparently, with 
 a heavy gold chain to his watch, and handsome 
 studs, how could he know one tithe of the 
 troubles that had come her way in that poverty
 
 202 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 which only those who know it can fathom? She 
 withdrew behind the tea-table, just as Mrs. 
 Stone called to her nephew, 
 
 " Frank," she said. ("So he is Frank too" 
 said Katie to herself.) "I have not presented 
 you to my young friends. Mr. Frank St. Clair, 
 Miss Russell (I see you have made acquaintance 
 already) ; and Miss Trevor. Lucy, do you re- 
 member I once told you of a boy who was to me 
 what your little Jock is to you ? There he 
 stands," for Frank had risen to bow to his new 
 acquaintance, and stood with his back to the 
 window, shutting out what little light there 
 was. 
 
 " You were a very young aunt, certainly," he 
 said, " but I refuse to believe that Miss Trevor 
 has anything to do with a second genera- 
 tion." 
 
 " Youth does not matter in that respect," said 
 Mrs. Rushton. ** I was an aunt when I was 
 three. There are a great many younger aunts 
 than Lucy; but, as it happens, it is a little 
 brother we are thinking of. And apropos, my
 
 AN AFTERNOON TEA. 203 
 
 dear, how is little Jock ? has he gone to school ? 
 it must be time he were at school." 
 
 " When you are ready, Lucy," said Mr. 
 Rushton, " I am going with you to see your 
 father. Not to say a word against my good old 
 friend Trevor, he is full of whims. Now what is 
 his fancy about that child ? He will not 
 bring him up as you have been brought up, 
 Lucy." 
 
 "Because he has nothing to do with the 
 money," said Lucy simply. u Papa thinks that 
 a very good reason. I wish you would persuade 
 him, Mr. Rushton ; I can't." 
 
 "And he tells you so!" said Mrs. Rushton, 
 shaking her head, " he talks to you about your 
 money, Lucy V 
 
 " Oh. yes ! a great deal," said Lucy. She 
 spoke with perfect calm and composure, and 
 they all looked at her with subdued admiration. 
 Six pair of eyes thus turned to her in the par- 
 tial gloom. An heiress ! and not ashamed of it, 
 nor excited by it — taking it so calmly. Sighs 
 that were all but prayers burst from, at least.
 
 204 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 three bosoms. Oh, that she but knew my Ray- 
 mond ! thought one ; and, if Frank will but play 
 his cards as he ought ! breathed another ; while 
 Mr. St. Clair himself said within himself robustly 
 and without any disguise — I wish I had it ! 
 There was no sentiment in the latter aspiration. 
 Katie, for her part, looked across the tea-table 
 at her friend with one of her sudden blushes, 
 feeling her cheeks tingle. What were her feel- 
 ings in respect to Lucy? In her case, the 
 wonder and interest were dashed with contempt, 
 yet warmed by affection. Katie thought she 
 despised money — not the abuse of it, nor the 
 pride of it — but itself. Her soft little lip curled 
 (or, at least, she tried to make it curl) with 
 disdain at this meretricious advantage. She 
 had said a hundred times that Lucy would be a 
 very nice girl, the nicest girl in the school, if it 
 were not for that money. She looked at her 
 with a kind of angry love — half disposed to cry 
 out, in Lucy's defence, that she was far better 
 than her fortune ; and half to throw a gibe at 
 her because she was rich. If they had been
 
 AN AFTERNOON TEA. 205 
 
 alone, she would have done the latter. As it 
 was, amid this party of people, with Mrs. Stone 
 close by, and Miss Southwood's little dark eyes 
 twinkling at her out of the shadows, Katie was 
 prudent and said nothing at all. As for Lucy, 
 she did not in the least perceive the covetousness, 
 which — in some instances, so mingled with other 
 feelings that its baseness was scarcely visible — 
 flamed in the eyes of the irreproachable people 
 who surrounded her. Mrs. Rushton was a kind, 
 good woman, who would not have harmed a fly. 
 Mrs. Stone was better even, she was high-minded, 
 generous in her way. And yet they both de- 
 voured Lucy in their thoughts — gave her over 
 to the destroyer. How fortunate that she never 
 suspected them as she stood there tranquilly 
 between the two, acknowledging that she 
 knew a great deal about her money. Mrs. 
 Rushton was still shaking her head at that 
 avowal. 
 
 '• My dear," she was saying, and with perfect 
 sincerity, " you must not let it turn your head. 
 Money can do a great deal, but there are many
 
 206 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 things it cannot do. It cannot make you happy 
 —or good." 
 
 " Lucy is good in spite of it," Mrs. Stone said, 
 she too in all sincerity ; " and I don't think she 
 lets her mind dwell upon it. But it is a very 
 equivocal advantage for a girl," she added with 
 a sigh. 
 
 All this Frank St. Clair listened to with a 
 grin upon his good-looking countenance. What 
 humbugs ! he said to himself — not being capable 
 of understanding that these women were much 
 more interesting as well as more dangerous in 
 not being humbugs at all. He, for his part, 
 waited for an opportunity of making himself 
 agreeable to the little heiress in perfect good 
 faith — brutalement as the French say. He wanted 
 to please her frankly for her fortune's sake. 
 Not that he could have been unkind to her, 
 had he happened to strike her fancy, or would 
 waste her fortune, or do anything unbecoming 
 an honest Englishman. But an honest English- 
 man, with a light purse, may surely look after a 
 girl with money without compromising his cha-
 
 AN AFTERNOON TEA. 207 
 
 racter. When he asked her to marry him, he 
 would not let her see that her money had any- 
 thing to do with it. He would fall in love with 
 her as a matter of course. It is not difficult to 
 fall in love with a pretty young girl of seventeen. 
 Well, perhaps, not strictly pretty— not nearly 
 so pretty, for example, as that little Poverty by 
 her side, the foil to her wealth ; but still very 
 presentable, and not unattractive in her own 
 simple person. Thus the cautious eyes that 
 surrounded Lucy, the hearts that beat with 
 eagerness to entrap and seize her, did not recog- 
 nise themselves as inflamed by evil passions. 
 They were aware, perhaps, that a little casuistry 
 would be necessary to make the outer world 
 aware of the innocence of their intentions, but 
 there was no aspect of the case in which they 
 could not prove that innocence to themselves. 
 
 When the hour of tea was over, Mr. Rushton 
 walked home with Lucy to see his old friend. 
 John Trevor was not Mr. Rushton's equal, nor did 
 he treat him as such. The old schoolmaster had 
 taught him arithmetic, that neglected branch of
 
 208 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 education, thirty or forty years ago, before he went 
 to the public school, where it was not taught ; and 
 the prosperous lawyer, who was Town-clerk, and 
 one of the principal men in Farafield, had always 
 shown a great regard for his old master. " I 
 should never have known more than two times 
 two but for you, Trevor," he would say, patting 
 the old man on the shoulder, not very respectful, 
 yet with genuine kindness. He went into the 
 blue and white drawing-room, and seated him- 
 self in front of the fire, and talked for an hour 
 to old Trevor, liberating Lucy, who hurried 
 away to Mrs. Ford's parlour, and with enviable 
 confidence in her digestion had another cup of 
 tea to please Jock, who had been watching for 
 her eagerly from the window. Then she was 
 made to sit down in a creaking basket-work 
 chair beside the fire and tell him stories. Mrs. 
 Ford's parlour was not aesthetic, like that of Mrs. 
 Stone ; but its horsehair and mahogany furni- 
 ture produced an effect not much unlike. Mrs. 
 Ford, in a black arm-chair, was elevated as high 
 above the heads of the younger people as if she
 
 AN AFTERNOON TEA. 209 
 
 had been seated in a genuine Chippendale chair. 
 And she crossed her hands on her black silk apron, 
 and sitti ng back in the shadow, listened well pleased, 
 but half in a drowse of comfort to Lucy's stories. 
 She had a little rest in her own person when 
 Lucy stepped into the breach. Though Mrs. 
 Ford was not at all certain that Lucy's stories 
 were Sunday stories worthy of the name. 
 
 Old Trevor had the will spread out before 
 him when Mr. Rushton entered — not adding to 
 it, however, which he would have certainly dis- 
 approved of as improper Sunday work — but 
 reading it over, sometimes aloud, sometimes 
 under his breath, sometimes with mutterings of 
 criticism. He pushed it away as his visitor 
 entered, and rose tottering to welcome him. 
 
 " Always going on with it, always going 
 on with it," the new-comer said, shaking his 
 hand. 
 
 "Yes, I always go on with it," cried old 
 Trevor with a chuckle, "It's my magnum opus, 
 Mr. Rushton. I add a bit most days, and on 
 Sunday I read over my handiwork, and study 
 
 vol. i. p
 
 210 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 how I can mend it. I have put you in," he 
 added with a great many nods of his head. 
 
 "What, for a legacy, Trevor?" said Mr. 
 Rushton with an easy laugh. 
 
 "For a legacy if you like," said old Trevor, 
 "though I don't suppose a hundred pounds 
 would be much to 3 T ou. No, not for money ; 
 but for the care of my girl, who is money. Ford 
 downstairs is always dinning into my ears that 
 somebody will marry her for her fortune. I 
 hope Lucy has more sense ; but still, in case of 
 anything happening, I want her to have friends 
 to advise her." 
 
 " Oh, I will advise her," said Mr. Rushton 
 lightly, "though I think perhaps my wife would 
 do it better. Fortune-hunters, yes, there are 
 always fortune-hunters after an heiress. Your 
 best plan would be to choose some one for her 
 yourself, and get her married off in your lifetime, 
 Trevor. Lucy is a good girl, and would con- 
 tent herself with her father's choice." 
 
 " Do you think so ?" said the old man with a 
 gleam of pleasure, " but no, no/' he added, " I
 
 AX AFTERNOON TEA. 211 
 
 am not in the same world that Lucy will be in. 
 I couldn't choose for her ; and besides she's only 
 seventeen, and I'm not long for this world." 
 
 " Seventeen is not too young to be married : 
 and you're hale and hearty, my old friend," said 
 his visitor, once more slapping him on the 
 shoulder. This demonstration of friendliness 
 was almost too much for old Trevor, standing 
 up feebly on his trembling old legs in honour of 
 this distinguished acquaintance. He shook his 
 head, but the voice was shaken out of him, and 
 he was not capable of any further reply. When, 
 however, Mr. Rushton encountered Ford outside 
 at the gateway of the Terrace he took a much 
 less jovial tone. ;i I hope he has got everything 
 signed and sealed," he said, " and all his affairs 
 in order; these papers he is always pottering 
 over— codicils I suppose— you should get them 
 signed too and made an end of. He is not long 
 for this world, as he himself says." 
 
 " I don't see much difference," said Ford with 
 that eagerness, half sorrow for the impending 
 event, half impatience to have it over, which 
 
 P 2
 
 212 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 V even the most affectionate of friends often feel 
 in spite of themselves, in respect to a long 
 anticipated, often retarded ending. "But. then 
 I see him every day. Do you really think—" 
 
 " You should see that everything is settled 
 and in order," said the lawyer as he walked 
 away.
 
 213 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 
 
 " A ND so Christopher went away to look 
 
 -*--*- for the great strong man that King 
 
 Maximus was afraid of; but I forgot, his name was 
 
 not Christopher then, but only Offero, a heathen ; 
 
 you know what a heathen is, Jock/"' 
 
 " I should think I did know ; but go on, go 
 on with the story; I never read this in any 
 book." 
 
 " Well ! Then Christopher wandered about 
 everywhere over all the country asking for the 
 strong man. He did not know whether it was 
 a giant like himself, or a King like Maximus, 
 or what it was ; but he went over the seas and
 
 214 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 up among the hills and into all the towns, look- 
 ing for him." 
 
 " That is far too like a fairy tale for a Sunday," 
 said Mrs. Ford, sitting behind in her big arm- 
 chair. "My dear, if he had gone to the chief 
 people in the country, the mayors of the towns, 
 or the authorities, they would soon have told 
 him— that is if he knew his name : and even in 
 a fairy tale few people are so stupid as to set 
 out in search of anyone without knowing his 
 name." 
 
 Mrs. Ford was a trifle, just a trifle jealous. 
 Lucy was not at all in the habit of interfering 
 with her prerogative; but she did not like it, 
 The " Pilgrim's Progress " she felt was much 
 better entertainment on a Sunday night for any 
 child. 
 
 " Oh, but this was not a person that the mayors 
 and the magistrates knew. Listen, Jock, his 
 name was Satan— now do you know who that 
 great strong man was ?" 
 
 " I thought as much, and it's all an allegory," 
 said Jock, who was blase, and tired of parables.
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 215 
 
 " I like a story best when it doesn't mean any- 
 thing; but goon, Lucy, all the same." 
 
 " I don't think it's an allegory. Katie Russell 
 read it out of a book about the Saints. I believe 
 it is a true story, only very, very long ago ; 
 many things happened long ago that don't hap- 
 pen now. I don't suppose the Queen has a big 
 giant like Christopher in all her armies ; but 
 still there was once a Christopher, Jock." 
 
 Jock accepted the explanation with a little 
 wave of his hand. He was glad, very glad, 
 especially on Sunday, of anything new, but at 
 the same time he was critical, and at the first 
 suggestion of an allegory stood on his guard. 
 
 " Well,'' said Lucy, resuming, " when Chris- 
 topher had wandered about for a long time 
 he met with a band of knights and their servants, 
 travelling about as they used to do in those 
 days, and at their head there was one all in black 
 armour with a helmet covering his head and his 
 face." 
 
 " You mean, I suppose," said Jock somewhat 
 cynically, " with his visor down."
 
 216 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " I suppose so," said Lucy, a little confused, 
 " but you know I am not so clever about these 
 things as you are. I am afraid you don't care 
 about my story, Jock." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I care about it ; but unless there 
 were enemies about, and he was afraid, he never 
 would have had his visor down ; and if he were 
 afraid Christopher would have known he couldn't 
 be much ; but I like your story all the same," 
 Jock added with great politeness ; and he liked 
 the role of critic, which was novel, too. 
 
 "He did not want to show his face," said Lucy 
 considerably cowed, " because if people had seen 
 him it would have been known what kind of a 
 being he was, and he looked a very great prince 
 with all his followers round him. So when 
 Christopher heard that this was Satan, he went 
 to him and offered his service ; and he was one 
 of his soldiers for a long time, I can't tell how 
 long ; but he did not like it at all, Jock, they 
 did so many cruel things. At last one day, one 
 very hot day in summer, they were all marching 
 along, and there were two roads to the place
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 217 
 
 where they were going ; one road led through a 
 wood, and that was a pleasant shady way. and 
 the other was the high road, which was dusty and 
 scorching and not a bit of shelter; and you may 
 suppose how astonished Christopher was when 
 the captain refused to go by the pleasant way, 
 though it was the shortest too." 
 
 k - What was that for ?" said Jock, excited 
 mildly by an incident which he had not fore- 
 seen. 
 
 " He would not tell for a long time ; first he 
 said it was one thing and then another, but none 
 of these reasons was the true one. At last 
 Christopher so pressed and pressed that he got 
 into a passion and it all came out. 'You great 
 big blundering stupid giant,' he cried, ' don't you 
 know there is a cross in the wood?' But Chris- 
 topher did not know what the cross meant; and 
 then the black knight was obliged to tell him 
 that he dared not pass the cross — because of One," 
 here Lucy's voice sank into reverential tones, 
 "who had been crucified upon it, and had won 
 the battle, and had made even that dreadful
 
 218 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 black Spirit, that cruel Satan, tremble and fly." 
 
 Jock was impressed too. and there was a 
 little pause, and in the ruddy twilight round the 
 fire the two young creatures looked solemnly at 
 each other; and a faint sound, something between 
 a sigh and a sob, came from kind Mrs. Ford, 
 over their heads, who was much touched and 
 weeping-ripe at the turn, to her so unexpected, 
 which the story had taken. 
 
 " And what did he do then ?" asked Jock, not 
 without awe. 
 
 " Oh, Jock ! he dashed his great big fist in the 
 black captain's face and shouted out, ' I knew 
 you were a cow r ard, you are so cruel. The man 
 who hung upon the cross, he is my master. I 
 will go and seek him till I die.' " 
 
 Then there was another little pause — Lucy, 
 too, in the excitement of her story-telling, having 
 got a lump in her throat — and Mrs. Ford sobbed 
 once more for pleasure. 
 
 " It is a beautiful story," she said ; " I am very 
 glad that the poor giant is going to be converted 
 at the last."
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 219 
 
 " Ah, but now comes the difficult part," said 
 Jock, "how was he to find Him? It was only a 
 wooden image that was upon that cross ; he 
 might seek and seek, like the Knights in the 
 ' Morte d' Arthur,' but how was he to find Him ! 
 that is what I want to know." 
 
 "Lucy, my dear, I think your papa wants 
 you," said Ford, coming in at this point, a little 
 more uneasy than usual, by dint of Mr. Rush- 
 ton's warning. " He is sitting all alone, and he 
 has just had his gas lighted." He came out to 
 the door of the parlour to wait for her, as she 
 rose and disengaged herself from her little 
 brother, who caught her dress to detain her. 
 Ford, at the door, put his hand on Lucy's arm. 
 " Do you think he has been looking worse ? don't 
 let me frighten you, Lucy, but can you see any 
 appearance as if he were sinking ?" 
 
 " Do you mean papa ? No," cried Lucy, with 
 a start of alarm. " Is he ill ? I will go to him 
 directly. What is the matter ?" 
 
 He had talked to her so much of his death 
 that the girl's heart leapt into the excited throb-
 
 220 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 bing which accompanies every great rallying of 
 the forces of nature. All her strength might 
 be required now, at once, without preparation. 
 Her throat grew dry, and the blood rushed to her 
 face. 
 
 " Oh, I don't think there is anything more 
 than ordinary," said Ford; "but Mr. Rushton 
 thought him looking bad. He gave me a fright! 
 and then of course, my dear, at his time of 
 life—" 
 
 Lucy drew her arm away, and went softly up- 
 stairs. Many daughters before now have had 
 to smooth the way before a dying father, and 
 there was nothing required of her in this way 
 that was above her strength; but it was not 
 with her in other things as with others. She 
 was aware how great the change was which would 
 open upon her, the moment this aged life had 
 reached its term ; and all the strange unknown 
 conditions which would surround her. It was 
 not possible for Lucy to thrust away the thought, 
 and comfort herself with indefinite hopes. For 
 years her thoughts had been directed to the catas-
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 221 
 
 trophe which was to be so momentous for her ; 
 she had never been allowed to ignore it. Her 
 heart still beat loudly at the thought of that 
 which might be coming now — which certainly 
 must come before long. Her father was the centre 
 of all her present living — beyond him lay the 
 unknown ; but when she went upstairs he was 
 sitting quite cheerfully, as he had been sitting 
 any time these ten years — almost since ever Lucy 
 could remember, in his arm-chair, neither paler 
 nor sadder, nor with any tragical symptoms in 
 him, looking over, with the same air of satisfac- 
 tion, the same large manuscripts in which, with 
 his own small neat handwriting, he had written 
 down his whole mind. He looked up as she 
 came in, and gave her his usual little nod of 
 welcome; and Lucy's heart immediately settled 
 down into its usual calm. She took her usual 
 seat beside him. All was as it had been for 
 years in the familiar room ; it was not, however, 
 the familiar room which took any character from 
 its inmates — or rather perhaps it embodied too 
 entirely the character of its old master, who
 
 222 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 required nothing except his chirms-corner, and 
 had no eye or taste for those niceties which reign 
 in a lady's sitting-room, even when not a Queen 
 Anne parlour of the newest old-fashion, like that 
 of Mrs. Stone. Lucy had never been used to 
 anything else, yet it repressed all emotion in her 
 when she came into this un-emotional place. 
 Die ! why should anyone ever die ? Would not 
 to-day be as yesterday for ever, and every hour 
 the same ? 
 
 " I have had Rushton here," said the old man ; 
 " how fat that man is getting at his age ! I don't 
 suppose he is fifty yet. I am glad I am not 
 one of the fat kind, Lucy ; it must be such a 
 trouble. And to think I remember him a slim 
 boy, not much higher than you are. Hasn't he 
 got a son f 
 
 " Yes, papa ; Raymond. I used to play with 
 him when I was little. He is quite grown up 
 now. Mrs. Rushton was telling me about 
 him-" 
 
 " Take my advice, Lucy," said her father, in- 
 terrupting her ; "and don't, however it maybe
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 223 
 
 pressed upon you, marry a man out of Farafield. 
 Plenty will try for you — very likely Raymond 
 himself. I thought there was something in 
 Eushton's eye — it was that made me think of it. 
 Don't marry a man from here. There's nothing 
 but paltry sort of people here." 
 
 " Yes, papa ;" said Lucy, calmly. She had 
 given a great many other promises on this 
 question of her marriage, with the same compo- 
 sure. There was no excitement in her own mind 
 about the question. She did not care what 
 pledges she gave. Her father, who was not 
 without humour, perceived this, and fixed his 
 eyes upon her with his usual chuckle. 
 
 " Yes, papa !" he said, mimicking her small 
 
 voice. " Anything for a quiet life ; you would 
 
 i 
 
 promise me not to marry the Mayor, or to marry 
 the Bishop, if I asked you, just in the same 
 tone." 
 
 "No, papa; I will promise not to marry any- 
 body you choose to mention ; but the other thing 
 would be more difficult. In the first place I don't 
 know the Bishop," she added, with a smile.
 
 224 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " That is all very well," said the old man ; 
 " but don't you know, Lucy, that in a year or 
 two your iniud may change on that subject? 
 You might fall in love, not with the Bishop, but 
 why not with Raymond Rushton, or any other 
 boy about the place 1 And this is what I want 
 to say to you, my dear. Don't ! That is to say, 
 keep them at a distance, Lucy. Don't let them 
 come near enough to get hold of you. Take my 
 word for it, though they may be nice enough in 
 their way, Farafield people are small. They are 
 petty people. They don't know the world ; and 
 you, with your fortune, my dear, you belong to- 
 the world, not to a little place like this." 
 
 " But you have lived all your life in Fara- 
 field r 
 
 " Oh yes ; that is quite true. And I am just 
 the same kind ; petty, that is the word, Lucy, 
 — small. That is why I am living like this, 
 making no change till it all comes into your 
 hands. Living in a grand house, spending a 
 deal of money, would go against me— I should 
 not like it. I should grudge every penny— I
 
 FATHER AXD DAUGHTER. 225 
 
 should say to myself, you old fool, John Trevor ! 
 what do you mean by spending all this upon your- 
 self? I couldn't do it. Carriages and horses and 
 a number of servants would be the death of me.'* 
 " I don't think I shall like them any better, 
 papa ; and if it is waste for you, it would also be 
 waste for me." 
 
 " Not at all, not at all," he said ; " you have 
 been brought up to it ; and it will be your duty. 
 for property has duties, Lucy. It is just as 
 necessary that you should spend a great deal on 
 your living, and keep up a great show, as it is 
 that you should give a great deal to the poor." 
 
 " But why then, papa, if you think that, am I 
 to live here with the Fords, who do not under- 
 stand anything of the kind, half of the year." 
 
 "Aha, Lucy!" he said, "that is just my 
 principle, you know; that is what you don't 
 understand as yet. You are to live with Lady 
 Randolph and the Fords, six months each, for — 
 unless you can get them all to consent to let 
 you marry somebody before that time — as 
 long as you are a girl, my dear; — this is 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the very crown of my plan, Lucy, without which 
 the other would not be good for much," he said, 
 rubbing his hands with satisfaction, and pausing 
 to tantalize her. As it was Sunday, Lucy had 
 not her knitting, so that she had nothing to do 
 but to look at him, with perfect placid composure 
 as usual, showing no scrap of excitement. 
 
 " Do you mean it is to be only for a time, 
 papa?" 
 
 " For — seven years," he said ; " seven years 
 from the time of my death. It is to be hoped 
 that my death will not be very long of coming, or 
 you will be too old to enjoy your freedom. But 
 there is not much fear of that ; even if you were 
 thirty before it came, thirty is the finest time of 
 life. You know a great deal by that time ; you 
 are not so easily taken in, and you are still fresh 
 and in all your glory. Never mind if fools begin 
 to call you an old maid ; a woman is not an old 
 maid at thirty, she is at her best. She can pick 
 and choose, especially when she has a fortune 
 like yours. And by that time you will have got 
 out of the young set— the ballroom set ; you will
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 227 
 
 have learned to know people of importance. 
 Yes," he said, chuckling ; " that is the crown of 
 my plan for you, Lucy— for seven years you will 
 be under a little restraint ; Mrs. Ford on one 
 nand, Lady Randolph on the other, two people, 
 I flatter myself, just as unlike as can be; and all 
 the men that have a chance will be after you ; but 
 none of them will be able to marry you without 
 the consent, you know," he went on chuckling 
 once more, " of all these people ; which I confess, 
 Lucy, I take to be next to impossible. And then, 
 my dear — then : in seven years complete freedom 
 — freedom to do whatever you like — to marry 
 whom you like — to be your own guardian— your 
 own adviser. It is worth waiting for, Lucy — 
 well worth waiting for. What a prospect V cried 
 the old man, in an ecstacy ; " a well-trained 
 mind used to control, an inexhaustible fortune, 
 nothing to do but to pick and choose among the 
 best people, and still under thirty years of age ! 
 By that time you will have learned to be content 
 with nothing less than the best." 
 Nothing could be more curious than the pleased 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 excitement of the old man, looking forward to 
 this climax of mortal felicity which he had care- 
 fully arranged for his child ; and the perfect calm 
 of the child herself, who neither realised nor 
 appreciated that blessedness. She said, after a 
 while, with a soft little sigh, which was half 
 weariness and half a sense of the dreariness of 
 the prospect, 
 
 " I should think it would be very nice — for a 
 man, papa" 
 
 " For a man ! nonsense, Lucy ; that is just an 
 old-fashioned notion. A woman who is thirty, 
 and has a great fortune, and is free to please her- 
 self, is as good as any man." 
 
 This was not exactly Lucy's point of view, but 
 she had no gift for argument. She thought it 
 was time to take refuge in a little harmless 
 gossip, which was the only thing that now and 
 then gave her the possibility of an escape from 
 the will. 
 
 " Mrs. Stone has a visitor," she said, " a gentle- 
 man come to see her. Mademoiselle thinks it 
 very wrong to have a gentleman where there are
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 229 
 
 so many girls. He is Mrs. Stone's nephew ; his 
 name is Mr. Frank St. Clair. It is quite a pretty 
 name, isn't it, papa? and he is good-looking, 
 though Katie says it is the barber's block style. 
 How I know is, that Katie and I went to Mrs. 
 Stone's parlour to tea. She never asks more 
 than two girls on Sunday, and it shows she is 
 pleased with you when she asks you. We all 
 like to be asked to the parlour to tea." 
 
 "Ah!" said old Trevor. He laughed and 
 looked at Lucy with a great many nods of his 
 grey head. " Mrs. Stone is generally pleased 
 with you, eh, Lucy ? She is a sensible woman ; 
 she knows what's what, as well as anyone, I 
 know. And so she has had her nephew down 
 already. She is a clever woman, a prompt 
 woman. I have a great opinion of Mrs. 
 Stone." 
 
 " Do you know him, then," said Lucy, with a 
 little surprise. " She said she was going to 
 bring him to call. She said she could not pre- 
 tend to entertain him at the White House, which, 
 is given up to education, and that it would be
 
 230 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 nice for him to be able to come and talk to 
 you." 
 
 At this Mr. Trevor chuckled more and more ; 
 he rubbed his hands with glee. 
 
 " She is quite capable of it," he cried, de- 
 lighted, "quite capable of it. She is a clever 
 woman, Lucy. I have always had a great ad- 
 miration for Mrs. Stone." 
 
 " Capable of what ?" said Lucy, almost angry. 
 She, for her part, had a great admiration for 
 Mrs. Stone. She had a girl's belief in, and 
 loyalty to the elder woman, who yet was not 
 too old to be out of sympathy with girls. She 
 admired her mature beauty, her dress, everything 
 about her, and to hear Mrs. Stone laughed at 
 was painful to Lucy. It affected that esprit de 
 corps which is next to self-regard, or sometimes 
 even goes before it. She felt her own moral 
 standing involved when anyone questioned, or 
 seemed to question, the superiority of her leader. 
 It was almost the only occasion on which any 
 latent gleam of temper came to Lucy's mild 
 eyes.
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 231 
 
 Mr. Trevor laughed again. 
 
 " You don't understand it, my dear," he said, 
 " it's a joke between Mrs. Stone and me. She is 
 capable of making me a party to my own defeat," 
 he said, with a new series of chuckles, " of 
 bringing me into the conspiracy against myself. 
 That's what I call clever, Lucy: Oh, she's a 
 very able woman ! but let us hope this time she 
 won't be so successful as she deserves. Fore- 
 warned is fore-armed ; I know now what I've 
 got to look forward to, and I hope she won't 
 find me an easy prey, my dear, thanks to 
 
 you." 
 
 "I cannot in the least tell what you mean. 
 papa," said Lucy, with dignity, "and if it is 
 anything against Mrs. Stone, I don't want to 
 know; and /hope she will be successful, what- 
 ever she wishes to do— though I don't know what 
 it is," the girl added, with a vehemence quite 
 unusual to her. It brought the colour to her 
 usually pale cheek. She got up from her chair 
 with angry haste. " I am going to get ready for 
 dinner," she said, " and if I have said anything
 
 232 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 to set you against Mrs. Stone, T did not mean 
 it, and I am very sorry. It must be my fault, 
 for I am quite sure there is nothing wrong in any- 
 thing she wants to do." 
 
 It was as if Lucy flounced out of the room, 
 so different was it from her usual calm, though 
 even now her demeanour was quiet enough. But 
 her father was not much affected by the girl's 
 vehemence. He sat looking after her and 
 chuckled, watching her grey gown whisk — nay, 
 almost whisk — the word was too violent to be 
 employed to any movement of Lucy's ; round the 
 corner of the big screen, and thought to himself 
 how wise he had been, and how clever in 
 choosing an instructress for Lucy of whom she 
 thought so well. Mrs. Stone's design, which he 
 thought he had found out, amused and, indeed, 
 pleased him too. He liked to see that this for- 
 tune, of which he thought so much, produced a 
 corresponding effect upon others, and, indeed, 
 would have been disappointed if there had been 
 nobody "after" it during his lifetime. This 
 was the first, and he chuckled over the advent
 
 FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 233 
 
 of the suitor, whom he determined to play and 
 amuse himself with. That Mrs. Stone should 
 have begun to scheme already did not displease, 
 rather flattered him, especially as it gave him 
 a fresh evidence of his own penetration in find- 
 ing her out, and confidence in his own power of 
 baffling her. Another man might have been 
 taken in, but not he. There he sat complacent, 
 while Lucy changed her grey gown for a blue 
 one. 
 
 All these habits and customs of a life 
 more refined than his own, the old man had done 
 his best to train his daughter into. For a time, 
 he had even gone so far as to put himself into 
 an evening coat for Lucy's sake, but increasing 
 weakness had persuaded him to give up that 
 penitential ceremony. Still he exacted, vigor- 
 ously and religiously, that she should dress for 
 dinner, and would indeed have made her come 
 down with bare shoulders every evening to the 
 homely meal, but for the interference of Mrs. 
 Stone, who had declared it " old fashioned" with
 
 234 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND, 
 great energy, to the complete annihilation of 
 poor old Trevor, who had thought himself 
 certain of this important special feature of high 
 
 life.
 
 235 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 
 
 IT is not to be supposed that in the tete-a- 
 tete dinner that followed, Lucy was set 
 free from the interminable subject of that 
 fortune which occupied all her father's thoughts. 
 The idea of perfect freedom in seven years 
 had but newly dawned upon him— though, as 
 soon as he had thought of it, he felt it to 
 be, as he had said, the natural crown of his 
 plan, and climax of his thoughts. Up to the 
 moment the great idea had dawned upon him, 
 there had been a little sense of imperfection 
 in his plans. They were elaborate preparations 
 for— nothing. But now he had seized the end
 
 236 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 to which all the preparations led. Neither the 
 Fords nor Lady Randolph could be expected to 
 live for ever in order to keep Lucy under 
 subjection, nor would she always be under the 
 superintendence of the matrimonial committee. 
 The absurdity became apparent to the framer 
 of the scheme just as he found the deliverance 
 from it. And now that the climax had been 
 attained, all the parts fell into due subordination. 
 Restraint until she had fully tried all the 
 preliminaries of life and learned to estimate the 
 worth of time; and then full freedom and the 
 control of herself and all that belonged to 
 her. It seemed to old Trevor, as he thought 
 it over, a beautiful scheme ; to-morrow he would 
 put fully on record these last stipulations, 
 and when that was done there would be no 
 more to do but to gather his garments round 
 him and go out of the way. It must not be 
 supposed, however, that any real idea of getting 
 out of the way was in the old man's mind. 
 He could not doubt that somehow he would 
 still be in the midst of it, though he professed
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 237 
 
 to be quite sure of dying and passing into another 
 life ; that was a matter of course — but when he 
 rubbed his hands with satisfaction over the 
 completeness of his plans, there was no feel- 
 ing in his mind that completeness involved 
 conclusion. On the contrary, he seemed to 
 see the prospect widening out before him. He 
 enjoyed in anticipation not only the admirable 
 wisdom of all his own stipulations, but even the 
 amusing complications to which they would 
 give birth ; and then with a thrill of pride and 
 satisfaction looked forward to the time of her 
 freedom and happy reign, and power of self- 
 disposal, nor ever once said to himself, u I 
 shall be out of it all — what will it be to 
 me r 
 
 However, Mr. Trevor's mind was so full of 
 this new idea that he could do nothing but 
 show, over and over again, how beautifully it 
 fitted in with every previous arrangement, 
 and how naturally everything led up to 
 this. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " to keep you under
 
 238 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 control all your days was what I never thought, 
 my dear. What I intended all along was to train 
 you to a right use of your liberty. Only when 
 you are able to bear the burden, Lucy —when 
 you have seen a great many fancies drop off, and 
 a great deal that you have believed in fail you, 
 and when you have learned to know what is the 
 best." 
 
 " Do you think that is so hard, papa ?" said Lucy 
 quietly, yet with a faint half-gleam of a smile. 
 No doubt it was natural that at his age he should 
 make " a fuss " about everything Lucy felt, 
 though she was so sensible that, of course, she 
 would choose nothing but the best. 
 
 " Yes, it is very hard," said the old man, " one 
 tries a great many things before one comes to that. 
 "A good-looking fellow, perhaps, for a lover, or a 
 nice-mannered girl for a friend— till you find out 
 that they are naught, neither one, nor the other, 
 and that you have got to begin again ; that's the 
 way of the world. Then perhaps you will 
 choose some others quite different, and they will 
 cheat you too. You get a little more and a little
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 239 
 
 more experience at every step, and then at the 
 end you will find somebody, as I found poor 
 Lucilla, that is really the best." 
 
 Lucy looked up at him aghast. The idea 
 made her tremble; first one bad and then 
 another, and at last a Lucilla who would die, 
 and be in her turn succeeded by another, who 
 was not the best. This gave the girl a shudder. 
 
 " I would rather put up with the bad ones," 
 she cried, " if I am fond of them, than go from 
 one to another ; it is horrible what you are 
 saying, papa/' 
 
 " Well, perhaps it is," said old Trevor, " life's 
 not so very beautiful, whatever you may think 
 just now; but what I am saying is right, that is 
 one thing I am certain of. You may content 
 3 r ourself with what's inferior if you like, Lucy ; 
 but you can't expect any encouragement from 
 me " 
 
 She looked at him with a little alarm in her 
 eyes. " It would be better to have nothing to 
 do with anybody, to live all alone by one's-self, 
 and never care for anybody " she cried.
 
 240 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " Many people do that," said old Trevor, " but 
 I don't approve of it Lucy. Take example by me. 
 I had seen a many before I saw your mother, 
 but I never had got any satisfaction to my mind 
 till I met with Lucilla. I used to say to myself, 
 this one won't do, and that one won't do. You 
 see I kept my wits about me, and my head 
 clear. Now that's the plan you must go upon, 
 both with friends, and with a husband if you 
 marry. You don't need to marry unless you 
 like — I don't say one thing or the other— you 
 are to please yourself. But don't take the first 
 that comes, don't take anyone till you've tried 
 him and tested him. And the same with your 
 friends — take 'em, and leave 'em, and choose 
 again till you have found the best." 
 
 " It is horrible, papa !" cried Lucy almost with 
 tears. 
 
 Then, though she was not an imaginative girl, 
 there suddenly came across her mind the story 
 which she had been telling to little Jock. She 
 had denied stoutly that it was an allegory, as 
 Jock's more experienced imagination had at once
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 241 
 
 feared ; but there was something in the course of 
 this conversation which chimed in with it, which 
 brought it to her mind. Just so had the giant 
 in that story sought his strongest and greatest. 
 The end of the tale which she had not told to 
 Jock was very incomprehensible to Lucy herself. 
 She had not understood it when it was " read out 
 loud," but it did not trouble her mind much. 
 She thought it would do for a story to tell 
 Jock, that was all. Now she thought of it 
 again as she sat over the almonds and raisins 
 opposite to her father and listened to him, and 
 shrank from the map of life which he opened 
 out before her. His revelations went up to just 
 about the same point as the story she had told 
 to Jock. And after that came the incompre- 
 hensible part, how to discern the best, how to get 
 to the acquaintance of the mysterious conqueror 
 of all. Jock had said that was the difficult 
 bit. In the story it was all a confusion to 
 Lucy, and she could not understand it at 
 all. 
 
 While she was thinking thus, her father was 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 talking on, but she had lost a good deal of what 
 he was saying when she suddenly came to herself 
 again, and began to hear him as if his voice 
 came out of a mist. 
 
 " And when that has happened once or twice," 
 old Trevor was saying. " You get sharp, oh, you 
 get sharp ! you are up to their devices — you 
 cannot be taken in any more." 
 
 " You speak as if everybody tried to take you 
 in, papa." 
 
 " Very near everybody," said old Trevor, grin- 
 ning, with a chuckle, " not all, I don't say all — 
 but very near ; and the hard thing is to find out 
 the ones that don't want to take you in. That 
 is a thing which you have to learn by experience, 
 Lucy. First you trust everybody — than you 
 trust nobody ; but after a while the sight comes 
 back to your eyes, and you know who to trust. 
 That is about the best lesson you can have in 
 this world. I was over fifty before I met with 
 your mother; that is to say, I had known her 
 when we were younger, but I had not given any 
 attention to her, not having learned then to dis-
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 243 
 
 criminate. We saw a deal of each other for two 
 years before we married — so you see I was a long 
 time before I got hold of my best, and yet I 
 did get it at the end." 
 
 Lucy was disturbed out of her usual compo- 
 sure by all this alarming and discouraging talk, 
 and she was slightly irritated, she could scarcely 
 have told why, by all she had heard about her 
 mother. She could not avoid a little retalia- 
 tion. " But afterwards," she said, " after— when 
 poor mamma died — was that the best too ?" 
 
 He had been discoursing as from a pulpit upon 
 his own wisdom and success, and received this 
 thrust full in his face with astonishment that 
 was comic. After the first confusion of surprise, 
 old Trevor laughed and chuckled himself out of 
 breath. " You have me there," he said, " Lucy, 
 you have me there. I have not got a word to 
 say. We won't say anything on the subject 
 at all, my dear. I told you before that was a 
 mistake." 
 
 But he was half flattered, half amused by this 
 return blow. During the rest of the evening, he 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 would drop into ceaseless chuckles, recalling the 
 sudden boldness of the assault. A man of many 
 wives is always more flattered than disconcerted 
 by any allusion to his successes. It was a 
 mistake, but still he was not ashamed of his 
 achievement. When, however, he had taken 
 his glass of port, which had more effect upon 
 him than usual in his growing weakness, the 
 old man grew penitential. " It was a great 
 mistake," he said again, " and I can't help won- 
 dering, now and then, how Lucilla will take it. 
 She was a very considerate person ; but there 
 are things that the best of women can't be ex- 
 pected to put up with. I will confess to you, 
 Lucy, that it makes me a little uneasy some- 
 times. Oh, yes ! it was a mistake." 
 
 Lucy had been quite re-assured when she had 
 joined her father in the afternoon after Ford's 
 warning, and had seen no difference in his looks; 
 but before the evening was over, a vague un- 
 easiness had crept over her. He talked more 
 than usual and sat longer than usual before he 
 could be persuaded to go to bed. And now and
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 245 
 
 then there was something disjointed in his talk. 
 He stopped short in the middle of a sentence, 
 and forgot to finish it. He introduced one sub- 
 ject into the midst of another. He gave her the 
 same advice several times over. After a while she 
 ceased to notice what he was sa} T ing altogether, out 
 of anxiety about him. He was not like himself; 
 but he would not allow her to leave him. He 
 was more intent on having her companionship 
 than she had ever known him. " Don't go 
 away," he said, when she did but stir in her 
 chair. As she sat and looked at him, having 
 no knitting (as it was Sunday), the spectacle 
 of the feeble old figure, garrulous, holding forth 
 from his chair, scarcely waiting for a reply, 
 struck the girl as if she had seen it for the first 
 tirna. His old cheeks were suffused with a 
 feverish red, his eyes were gleaming, his head 
 had a tremble in it, his lean old hand, so often 
 used to emphasize what he said, shook when he 
 held it up. There are moments when the aspects 
 of a familiar figure change to us, when we see 
 it as strangers see it, but with a still keener
 
 2±6 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 insight, perceiving, in a moment, the wreck 
 which we may have seen without seeing it, falling 
 into decay for years. This was the revelation 
 which all at once came upon Lucy. She had 
 seen nothing unusual about him a few hours ago 
 — now, quite suddenly, she came to see him as 
 Mr. Rushton had seen him, as he appeared to 
 strangers ; but in a guise so much the more 
 alarming as it concerned her much more closely. 
 She held her breath as this revelation flashed 
 upon her, feeling as if she must cry out and call 
 for help, she who was so composed and unex- 
 citable. It seemed to Lucy, in her sudden alarm 
 and ignorance, that he might die before her 
 eyes. 
 
 This, of course, was an entirely false alarm. 
 Next morning he was exactly like himself again, 
 no special feebleness in his aspect, and much 
 energy in his mind. As soon as he got settled 
 in his chair, Mr. Trevor got his big manuscript 
 out, took a fresh pen which Ford had mended for 
 him, and began to w T ork with great energy and 
 pleasure. Never had he more enjoyed his work ;
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 247 
 
 he was putting on the corner stone— finishing the 
 fabric. It took hiin all the morning to put every- 
 thing down as he had planned it. And it pleased 
 him so much that he smiled and chuckled to 
 himself as he wrote, and said special phrases over 
 and over under his breath. All the morning 
 through, he sat at his table working at it- 
 while little Jock occupied his habitual position 
 stretched out upon the white rug before the fire, 
 his shoulders raised a little, his head bent over 
 his book. Jock was too much absorbed to be 
 aware of anything that was going on. The book 
 he had lighted upon that day was Defoe's 
 " History of the Plague," and the little fellow 
 was altogether given over to its weird fascina- 
 tions. It was more entrancing even than " Ro- 
 binson Crusoe." Thus the child and the old man 
 kept each other company for hours together ; the 
 one betraying his presence occasionally by a little 
 flicker of two small blue legs from the white rug, 
 and of the pages of his book, itself half buried 
 in the silky whiteness ; while the other chuckled 
 and muttered as he wrote, delighted with himself
 
 248 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and his latest conception. They were both 
 living by the imagination, though in phases so 
 different; the boy carried out of himself, lost 
 in the wonderful dream-history which was so 
 much more real than anything else around him : 
 the old man throwing himself forward into a 
 future he should never see, enacting a dream 
 life, which was to be when his should be ended 
 and over— but which in its visionary distance 
 was also a thousand times more real than the 
 dull day to which it gave a fictitious charm. 
 
 When the clause was finished, Mr. Trevor 
 once more called up Ford, and made him ac- 
 quainted with his new conception. Ford studied 
 him attentively while he read it, but he also 
 listened with benevolent attention ; and he 
 gave his approval to the new plan. Seven years ! 
 Ford was just about so much the junior of his 
 friend and patron. He said to himself, as he 
 listened, that by that time he would no longer 
 care to have the responsibility of superintending 
 Lucy's actions; and he graciously concurred in 
 the expediency of her liberation. " If she cannot
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 249 
 
 manage her own affairs at thirty or so, she 
 never will," he said, " and I think, Mr. Trevor, 
 that you're in the right." 
 
 " If I go soon," said the old man, " she'll be 
 five-and-twenty, and no more ; and I think I'll 
 go soon ; but nobody can answer for a year or 
 two. Yes, I think it's a pretty will as it stands ; 
 I don't think, without any partiality, that you'll 
 find many like it. There's nothing that can hap- 
 pen to her, so far as human insight goes, that 
 I have not foreseen and left directions for. I hope 
 I have not been insensible to my responsibilities, 
 Ford. I've tried to be father and mother both. 
 If you can point out anything that I've 
 neglected—" 
 
 "Mr. Trevor," said the other; "you've thought 
 of a many more things than would ever have 
 come into my head. You've discharged your 
 
 duties nobly; and I and Susan will do our part. 
 
 You need not be afraid ; we'll take your example 
 
 for our guide, and we'll do our part." 
 
 " Just so, just so," said the old man, not so 
 
 much interested. It was essential, no doubt,
 
 250 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 that his will should be carried out ; but he did 
 not realize so clearly, and perhaps he did not 
 wish to realize, that he would himself have no 
 hand in carrying it out. When the question was 
 put as to how the Fords were to do their part, his 
 attention flagged. "You are not to be the first, 
 you know," he said, brusquely ; " there's my 
 Lady Randolph that comes first." 
 
 Here Ford began to shake his head. " If you 
 took my opinion, I'd say that was the one weak 
 point," he said ; " I make bold to say it, though 
 I know you will be offended, Mr. Trevor. That's 
 the weak point. It's well intended, very well 
 intended ; but that's the weak point." 
 
 " You blockhead !" said the other ; but he 
 kept his temper. " You would keep her in Fara- 
 h'eld all her life, I shouldn't wonder, and have 
 all the little cads in the place after her ! 
 and never let her have a glimpse of the 
 world." 
 
 " I don't know what you call the world," said 
 Ford. " Human nature is the same everywhere. 
 We are just the same lot wherever you take us —
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 251 
 
 and as for cads there's Sir Thomas . I 
 
 thank the Lord I don't know anybody in Fara- 
 field — nobody in my own class of life — that has 
 been so tiresome, that has been as wild — " 
 
 " You let Sir Thomas alone," said old Trevor ; 
 " he never was a cad." 
 
 Upon which Ford continued to shake his head. 
 " It may be a word that I don't fathom," he said ; 
 " I don't know one in Farafield that has given 
 as much trouble ; and he's always in want of 
 money; it's like putting the lamb into the 
 clutches of the wolf." 
 
 " There are plenty of wolves," said the old 
 man. " That's my policy ; I set one to fight the 
 other, and I wish them joy of it. One here and 
 one there, that's better than a single candidate. 
 And while they're pulling each other to pieces, 
 my little lamb will get off scot-free." 
 
 Ford shook his head persistently, till it 
 seemed doubtful if it ever would recover its 
 steadiness. " If I were to speak my mind," 
 he said ; " there's one that has a real claim — just 
 one. He's maybe too modest to speak for him-
 
 252 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 self; but there is one, if I were to speak my 
 mind — " 
 
 " Then don't 1" said old Trevor, with a fiercer 
 gleam in his eyes ; " that's my advice to you, 
 Richard Ford. Don't ! I want to hear nothing 
 of your one that has a claim. Who has any 
 claim ? not a soul in the world ! Lucy's fortune 
 is her own — she's obliged to nobody for it. It 
 comes to her, not from me, that I should take 
 upon me to pick and choose. She does not get 
 a penny from me ; all I have I've given to the 
 other, and a very good nest egg too for his 
 position in life. But Lucy's fortune is none of 
 my making^; Lucy is Lucilla's daughter." 
 
 "Susan's cousin!" said Ford, instinctively. 
 He regretted it the next moment ; but he could 
 not withhold this protest. To think that all the 
 money should be Lucilla's, and none of it come 
 to Susan, though she was Lucilla's cousin ! It 
 is hard, it must be allowed, to see fortunes come 
 so near, yet have no share in them. In the family ; 
 yet not yours, not the smallest bit yours, save 
 by grace and favour of a stranger, a man who
 
 THE LAST CLAUSE. 253 
 
 is your cousin's husband, indeed, but has no 
 claim otherwise to belong to the family. The 
 Fords were not at all ungrateful to old Trevor ; 
 but still there were moments when this struck 
 them in spite of themselves.
 
 254 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 
 
 THE prophets of evil were not deceived ; when 
 a kind of general impression arises in 
 respect to an invalid that a crisis is approaching, 
 it almost always is justified by the event. 
 During that very night there was a sudden alarm ; 
 Mr. Trevor's bell rang loudly, awakening all the 
 house. Lucy flew from her room, hastily gather- 
 ing her dressing-gown round her, with her light 
 hair hanging about her shoulders, and Mrs. Ford 
 appeared in a night-cap, which was an indecorum 
 she recollected long afterwards. The maids 
 naturally, being less interested, were harder to 
 rouse, and it was Mr. Ford himself who issued
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 255 
 
 forth in the penetrating chill of the early morn- 
 ing, still quite dark and silent, not a soul astir, 
 and buttoning himself into his warmest overcoat, 
 went out in the cold to seek a doctor, who, for 
 his part, was just as unwilling to be roused out 
 of his slumbers in the middle of the night. Jock, 
 roused by the sounds, sat up in his little bed, 
 with wide-awake eyes, hearing the bell still jar 
 and tinkle, and sounds of people running up and 
 downstairs, which half frightened, half re-assured 
 him. To hear other people moving about is 
 always a comfort to a child, and so was the 
 reflection of the lamp at the gateway of the 
 Terrace, which shone into his room and kept it 
 light. Jock sat up and gazed with big eyes, 
 and wondered, but was too much awed and 
 alarmed by the nocturnal disturbance to move ; 
 and, indeed, as it turned out after, there was 
 not much need for anyone to be disturbed. Old 
 Trevor's explanation was that he had woke up 
 with a loud singing in his ears, and sense of 
 giddiness, and he could not articulate at first, 
 when they rushed to his bedside, so that every-
 
 256 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 body believed it to be a " stroke." But when the 
 doctor came he declared that, though the patient's 
 blood was running like a river in flood, yet 
 that there was nothing very particular the 
 matter, and that a day or two's quiet would 
 make him all right. Mrs. Ford, in her night- 
 cap, remained by the newly-lighted fire in Mr. 
 Trevor's room to take care of him ; but the rest 
 were all sent back to bed, and when the break- 
 fast hour arrived the patient pronounced himself 
 as well as ever. He got up at his usual hour, 
 and would not even allow that, as Mrs. Ford 
 suggested, he felt " shaky." 
 
 " Not a bit shaky," he declared, putting out 
 one shrunken shank to show how steadily he 
 stood on the other ; " but I thought my time was 
 come," he said. "I'll allow I thought I had 
 reached it, after looking for it so long. It was 
 a queer feeling. I am just as well pleased to 
 put it off a bit, though it must come 
 soon." 
 
 " That is true," Ford said, shaking his head ; 
 " we must all die ; but the youngest may
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 257 
 
 go off before the oldest, as happens every 
 day." 
 
 These were the words that little Jock heard 
 as they came into the drawing-room, the old 
 man leaning on the arm of the other. Where 
 was the youngest to go off to ? He understood 
 vaguely, and a momentary thrill ran through his 
 little veins. Was it he that might " go" before 
 his father ! it was a thing which seemed to lie 
 between the eldest and the youngest. Jock's 
 mind was full of the plague and all its horrible 
 details, and the wonder and mystery of thus 
 going " off" chimed in with this gloomy yet 
 fascinating study ; the recollection of the bell tink- 
 ling through the streets, the dead-cart stopping at 
 the door, scared yet excited him. But there was no 
 plague, no dead-cart, no tinkling bell at Farafield. 
 After a while the impression died out of the child's 
 mind, but scarcely so quickly as it did out of the 
 mind of his old father, who already chuckled to 
 himself over the fright he had given the house. 
 Mr. Trevor did justice to the people who sur- 
 rounded him. 
 
 VOL. i. s
 
 258 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " When it really comes they will be sorry," 
 he said ; " but it was a disappointment." 
 
 He liked to think he had disappointed them ; 
 even in getting better, a man cannot but feel 
 that his own superior sense and strength of 
 character have something to do with it. Another 
 man would not have rallied, would have been 
 capable of dying, perhaps, and cutting short all 
 the interest of his story ; but not John Trevor, 
 who knew better what he was about. 
 
 The night-alarm, however, soon became known 
 over Farafield, and many people had sufficient 
 interest in the old man and his daughter to 
 come, or send, and make inquiries. Among these 
 he had one visitor who amused and one who 
 angered him. The first was a stranger, who 
 sent up a card with the name of Mr. Frank St. 
 Clair, and a message from Mrs. Stone, who 
 begged to have the last news of the sufferer. 
 " Show him up, show him up," old Trevor said, 
 his keen eyes twinkling with malice and humour ; 
 but when the large figure of the young barrister 
 (for that was Mr. Frank St. Clair's profession)
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 259 
 
 entered the room, the old man was impressed, in 
 spite of himself, by the solidity and imposing 
 proportions of Mrs. Stone's nephew and candi- 
 date ; there was an air of respectability about 
 him which compelled attention. He was hand- 
 some, but he was also serious, and had that air 
 of a man who has given hostages to societ} T , 
 which nothing confers so surely as this tendency 
 to a comfortable and respectable fulness of frame. 
 Old Trevor acknowledged to himself that this 
 was no young dandy, but a man, possibly, of 
 weight of character as well as person ; his very 
 tendency (to speak politely) to embonpoint con- 
 ciliated the old man. Schemers are seldom fat 
 Mr. Frank St. Clair looked respectable to the 
 tips of his well-brushed boots, and, as he looked 
 at him, old Trevor was mollified in spite of him 
 self. 
 
 "Yes, I gave them a fright," he said. " I 
 thought myself that matters were coming to a 
 crisis; but it was a false alarm. You may tell 
 your aunt that I am as well as ever, and as clear in 
 my intellects as ever — such intellects as I have." 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " Nobody would doubt that, I think," said St. 
 Clair; and indeed Mr. Trevor flattered himself 
 that nobody could doubt it. He was as clearly 
 aware of the effect upon a stranger of his own 
 keen eyes and vivacious wide-awake aspect as any 
 one could be. 
 
 " There's no telling," said the old man ; " some 
 people think they can take me in — which is a 
 mistake, Mr. St. Clair— a great mistake." 
 
 " I should think so," said St. Clair, with easy 
 composure. "If you will let me, I will sit 
 down," he said; "if there is nothing to occupy 
 you for the moment, I wonder if you will let 
 me ask your advice about a little money I 
 have ?" 
 
 Again the malicious gleam awoke in old 
 Trevor's eyes, a mixture of suspicion, admiration, 
 and interest moved him. Every man who had 
 money interested him more or less; but if this 
 was a dodge on Mrs. Stone's part, the move was 
 one which might have filled any like-minded 
 artist with admiration. He chuckled as he in- 
 vited the confidence of his visitor — yet though he
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 261 
 
 thought he saw through the deceit, he respected 
 St. Clair all the same for having money to invent, 
 even if it were not his own, but lent to him for 
 the occasion; it thiew a halo of interest round 
 him in old Trevor's eyes. 
 
 " So that's the first of them," he said to him- 
 self, when St. Clair took his departure ; " that's 
 number one of the pack. Women are quick 
 about it, they don't let the grass grow under 
 their feet. Rushton will keep quiet, he won't let 
 his lad show in my sight. But the women are 
 bold— they're always bold. And I wonder who 
 my lady will bring forward?" The old man 
 laughed ; he was pleased by the thought of the 
 coming struggle. It did not give him any con- 
 cern that his young daughter should be left alone 
 in the midst of it, to be competed for by so many 
 hungry aspirants. " I'd like to be there to see the 
 wolves at it," he said aloud, with a grin on his 
 face. 
 
 At the sound of the voice over his head, little 
 Jock turned round upon his rug. Wolves were 
 in his way ; from Red Riding-hood upwards, he
 
 262 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 knew a great deal about them ; he had heard 
 them in the forests pursuing the travellers, and 
 knew what the howl meant when it occurred in 
 a story in the midst of the black winter night. 
 He turned right round, with the " History of the 
 Plague " in his arms, and faced his father look- 
 ing upward from the rug. " What is it about 
 wolves?" said Jock. 
 
 No question could have surprised old Trevor 
 more ; he looked round him first in suspicion, to 
 see where the voice came from, then looked down 
 upon the child with a gape of wonder. " Eh ! 
 do you know anything about wolves, my lad V ' 
 he said. 
 
 " Oh, a great deal !" said Jock, calmly ; " I 
 could tell you heaps of stories about them ; the 
 worst of all is that one about the woman and 
 her children. I told it to Lucy, and she would 
 not let me tell it out. Would you like me to tell 
 it to you V 
 
 Jock spoke to his father on very much the 
 footing of an equal. They did not as a rule take 
 much notice of each other ; but the curious way
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 263 
 
 in which they pursued their lives together had 
 given the old man and the little hoy a sort of 
 tacit fellowship, not at all like the usual relation 
 between father and child. Xot once in two or 
 three months was there any conversation between 
 them, and this gave all the more importance to 
 their occasional intercourse. " There was once 
 a woman," said Jock, " travelling though a wild, 
 wild forest, and she had her three little children 
 with her — quite little, little things, littler than 
 me a great deal ; when all of a sudden she heard 
 pad, pad, something coming behind her ! It 
 wasn't quite night, but it was getting dark, 
 darker and darker every moment ; and the old 
 white horse got awfully frightened, and the 
 forest was miles and miles long. She knew she 
 couldn't come to a village, or a house, for ever so 
 long. And she heard them coming on faster and 
 faster; sniffing and panting, and all after her, 
 hundreds and hundreds of them; they're like 
 dogs you know," said Jock, parenthetically, look- 
 ing up from the rug, where he lay on his back, 
 with the " History of the Plague " laid open on
 
 264 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 his breast; "they bark and they howl, just like 
 dogs, when you hear them far off in the woods ; 
 but when they're after you, they go straight 
 before them, like the wind blowing, and never 
 make any sound." 
 
 " And what became of the woman and the 
 children ?" said old Trevor, partly amused, 
 partly impressed. 
 
 " The white horse* galloped on and on," said 
 Jock, with the instinct of a story-teller; "and 
 the wolves came after pad, pad, all like one, 
 though there were hundreds and hundreds of 
 them, and the woman in the sleigh (did I tell 
 you it was a sleigh? but I don't know rightly 
 myself wdiat a sleigh is), got wild with fright, 
 and the three little things cried, and the trees 
 made a noise against the sky ; and the wood got 
 deeper and deeper, and the night darker and 
 darker; and then she heard them all panting 
 behind her, and their breath hot upon her, and 
 
 * The poem of Ivan Ivanovitch had not been written in 
 those clays, and perhaps it might have been above Jock's un- 
 derstanding.
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 265 
 
 every moment she thought they would jump up 
 behind and crunch her with their teeth — " 
 
 " Go on, child, go on ;" said old Trevor. 
 ik I think I've heard the story ; but I don't re- 
 member how she got out of it." 
 
 ' k This is what Lucy will never listen to," said 
 Jock, solemnly ; " she says it can't be true ; she 
 says there ne^er was a woman like that. She 
 says she'll beat me if I go on ; but it is the real 
 end to the story all the same. Well, you know, 
 the woman was wild ; she didn't know what she 
 was doing. Just when they were going to 
 crunch her with their teeth in her neck, she 
 turned round, and she took up one of the 
 children and flung it out into the middle of the 
 wolves ; and the little thing gave just one more 
 cry (he was crying, you know, before), and the 
 wolves caught him in their big teeth, and tore 
 him, one a piece here and another a piece there, 
 hundreds and hundreds of them ; and the old 
 white horse galloped on and on. 
 
 " Well, but then that was only one," said Jock 
 resuming after a pause, "when they had eaten
 
 266 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 that little thing all up, they were not half 
 satisfied, and they said to each other 'come on, 
 and two minutes after, what should the woman 
 hear, but the whole mob of them after her again, 
 and the sound of them panting and their breaths 
 on her neck. And she took hold of another little 
 child " 
 
 " You need'nt tell me any more," said the old 
 man ; " where did you get these dreadful 
 stories ? — they turn one sick." 
 
 " She threw them all out, the first, and the 
 second, and the third," cried the boy making haste 
 to complete his narrative, " and then she was saved 
 herself. Lucy never gets further than the first ; but 
 you've heard the second. And she says it can't be 
 true, but it is true," said Jock severely, 
 " many people have told it. I've read another 
 story " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, child," said the old 
 man. 
 
 Which Jock did at once. He was ready to 
 come forward, to recount his experience, or 
 instruct others by his large amount of miscel-
 
 A FALSE ALARM, 267 
 
 laneous reading whenever it was necessary, but 
 he did not thrust his information upon unwilling 
 ears. He turned round again promptly, and, 
 laying his book down on the white rug, 
 supported himself on his elbows and resumed his 
 reading. Jock had a perfectly good conscience, 
 and could hear any number of parables (though 
 he was always suspicious of them) without turn- 
 ing a hair. 
 
 But old Trevor was not equally innocent ; he 
 trembled a little within himself at that story of 
 remorseless self-preservation. The wolves were 
 the image he had himself used, and when he re- 
 membered that he had looked forward to their 
 struggle with amusement, and indeed done his ut- 
 most to draw them together, without much regard 
 for the lamb who was to escape as she could from 
 their clutches, a momentary tremor of conscience 
 came over him. But it did not last long ; impres- 
 sions of this kind seldom do ; and when he received 
 a second visit in the evening, this time from 
 Philip Rainy, who expressed much solicitude about 
 his health, old Trevor had ceased to feel any
 
 268 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 compunctions about the fierce competition to 
 which he was going to expose his child. But he 
 was firmly determined that the first and most 
 natural competitor, the man who was of the 
 family, and had a sort of claim to everything that 
 belonged to the name, should not be, so to speak, 
 in the running at all. 
 
 " I am very well," he said, " quite well, thank 
 you ; there is nothing the matter with me. If 
 people say to the contrary they're lying, or at the 
 best they're fools meddling in other folks' 
 affairs. It's nothing to anyone if I'm ill or 
 well." 
 
 "You must pardon me, uncle," said Philip, 
 " but it is something to me." 
 
 The familiar grin came upon the old man's 
 face : but it was not accompanied with a chuckle 
 of not unkindly mirth, as it had been in the case 
 of Mrs. Stone's nephew, in whose favour there was 
 no such potent argument. 
 
 " I don't know what it should be to you," he 
 said, " Mr. Philip Rainy : if you had been 
 waiting for my shoes I could have understood —
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 269 
 
 but you've got 'em, you've got 'em, more fool I ; 
 and if you think there is anything more coming 
 to you when I die, you're mistaken, that's all 
 I've got to say. My will's made — and there's 
 no legacies in it, not one. My money goes to 
 them that have a right to it. There's no fancy 
 items to satisfy those that have gone out of their 
 way, or thought they'd gone out of their way, 
 to flatter an old man. So that it's no good, no 
 possible good, to take that friendly interest in 
 me." 
 
 Lucy, who was sitting by when this was said, 
 started and got up from her knitting, and went 
 once more behind her father, where she stood 
 looking pitifully at Philip, clasping her hands 
 together, and imploring him with her eyes not to 
 be angry. That would have been inducement 
 enough to bear with the old man's brutal in- 
 civility, if there had been nothing more. He 
 gave her a slight, almost imperceptible nod, 
 re-assuring her, and answered with a calmness 
 which did him infinite credit, and indeed cost him 
 a great effort.
 
 270 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " I am sorry you think so badly of me," he 
 said, " but I will not defend myself. I am 
 waiting for no old shoes, heaven knows. I 
 should like to be of use to my relations — to you 
 or to Lucy. But, if you will not let me, I must put 
 up with it. And I will not stay longer now, since 
 you have so poor an opinion of me. Good night, 
 I am going away ; but I shall not cease to think 
 about you, though I do not see you. You have 
 been very kind to me, substantially kind," said 
 Philip, rising slowly with a lingering look at the 
 father and daughter, " I owe all that I am, and 
 something of what I may be to you, and I want 
 no more, Mr. Trevor, no legacies, nothing but a 
 way of showing my gratitude. If I am not to be 
 allowed to do this, why, I must submit. Good 
 night." 
 
 There was a quaver of real feeling in the 
 young man's voice. It was true enough, and if 
 there was something more that was likewise true, 
 the suppressio veri is in some cases a very venial 
 fault. As for Lucy, what with sympathy and in- 
 dignation and shame for her father's conduct, she
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 271 
 
 was more tenderly inclined towards Philip than 
 she had ever been in her life. Thus opposition 
 usually works. She cast an indignant look at 
 her father, and a strenuous protest in the shape 
 of an exclamation : " Papa !" which spoke volumes; 
 and then in spite of his call to her to remain, she 
 followed Philip as he went downstairs, appealing 
 to him also, in a different way, with the tears in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " You will not mind, Philip ; but please don't 
 stop coming or quarrel because he is cross. He 
 is ill, that ie the reason, he is not himself; but I 
 am sure you are too sensible to mind." 
 
 Philip shook his head with a smile. " I 
 fear I am not so sensible," he said, " I do mind ; 
 but, Lucy, if you will always speak to me 
 as kindly I shall not mind what anyone else may 
 say," he added with fervour. He had never gone 
 so far, or felt inclined to go so far before. 
 
 Lucy was surprised by this new tone, and 
 looked at him, not with alarm, but with a mild 
 astonishment. However, as it did not occur to 
 her that there could be any special meaning in
 
 272 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 it, she gave him her hand kindly as usual, 
 nay, a little more kindly, in that her father had 
 used him so badly. 
 
 81 It does not matter very much about me," 
 she said, " but I am very, very sorry papa has 
 been so — strange. It is only because he is ill, 
 very ill still. They all think he is better, but 
 I don't think so ; his hand is so hot and trembling, 
 and there is such a wild sort of brightness in 
 his eyes. I am not easy about him, but 
 very unhappy. I wish to-night was over," 
 she said, the tears falling in a little shower from 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Lucy ! let me stay ; will you let me stay ? 
 He need not know that I am here, but I could 
 sit up downstairs and be ready to run for the 
 doctor, or to do anything." 
 
 "It is very good of you, Philip; but how 
 would you be fit for your work if you sat up all 
 night? No, no, I cannot let you do that. 
 And perhaps it will not be so bad, perhaps I am 
 — silly," said Lucy, with a dolorous attempt at a 
 smile.
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 273 
 
 "What does the doctor say?" Philip asked. 
 
 He was very sorry for her in all truth and 
 sincerity, besides having a sense that it would 
 be very good for him to be thus identified 
 with her, and show himself as her chief com- 
 forter and support at this serious moment of her 
 life. 
 
 Mrs. Ford came out from her parlour as she 
 heard the conversation outside. She was Philip's 
 relation too, and she had decided that nothing 
 
 could be more suitable, if But like so many 
 
 other good women she could not let well alone, 
 and to Philip's great vexation here came 
 out, adding her portly presence to the 
 scene. 
 
 " The doctor is quite satisfied," said Mrs. 
 Ford, " quite satisfied. He is going on as nicely 
 as possible ; you must help me to persuade Lucy, 
 Philip, that she must not sit up as she is talking 
 of doing. Why should she sit up? I shall 
 be there to do whatever is wanted, and to 
 call her if it should be necessary. At her 
 
 VOL. I T
 
 274 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 age it is a killing thing to sit up all 
 night." 
 
 " I have been begging her to let me stay and 
 watch instead," said Philip ; " a chair in your 
 parlour would be all I should want, and I should 
 be ready to run for the doctor." 
 
 " Oh, no, no," Lucy said. 
 
 Mrs. Ford wavered for a moment, thinking 
 that a young man was much more fit for this 
 duty than her respectable husband, but finally 
 decided that it was not to be thought of, re- 
 membering Mr. Trevor's dislike to Philip ; and 
 then the bell was heard to ring, and Lucy ran 
 upstairs anxiously. Mrs. Ford's parting words, 
 however, were very encouraging. 
 
 tb Don't you take any notice," she said, " but 
 come and see her, whether you see him or not. 
 He will go some day or other, that's certain, in 
 one of these fits." 
 
 " Poor little Lucy !" Philip said. 
 
 " Yes, it is true, it will be sad for her," said 
 Mrs. Ford, not half sure of what she was saying ;
 
 A FALSE ALARM. 275 
 
 " but yet Lucy will have a great deal to be thank- 
 ful for, whatever happens," she added, as she 
 again bade him good-night. 
 
 T 2
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 
 
 A FTER this alarm, however, Mr. Trevor got 
 ■*-*- better, and there was an interval of calm. 
 Life resumed its usual routine, and all went on as 
 before. During this interval, Frank St. Clair 
 became Mr. Trevor's constant visitor. He saw 
 the old man almost every day, and there can 
 be no doubt that he entertained and amused him 
 much. Old Trevor even went so far as to talk 
 to him about the will, that all-important docu- 
 ment, which was the object of his existence — 
 not, indeed, of its actual composition, but of its 
 existence as a mysterious authority which was 
 to guide the steps of his successors for years.
 
 THE SIGNING OP THE WILL. 277 
 
 They had a great many most interesting con- 
 versations about wills. Frank was not a great 
 lawyer, but yet he could remember some cases 
 which had made a noise in their day, and some 
 which had kept families in great commotion and 
 trouble without making much noise in the world ; 
 and he took a somewhat malicious pleasure in 
 telling his new acquaintance alarming stories 
 of wills that had been lost, then found again to 
 the confusion of every rational arrangement ; 
 and of wills that had been suppressed, and of 
 some which no one had paid any attention to, 
 setting aside their stipulations entirely, almost 
 before the testator was cold in his grave. This 
 was very startling to old Trevor. He inquired 
 into it with a wonderful look of anxiety on his 
 face. There was one will, in particular, of 
 which his informant told him, with malicious 
 calm, in which there was question of a house 
 which the testator had built for his daughter, 
 and which he left to her under the condition 
 that it should never be let or sold, but remain 
 a home for her and her children for ever. What
 
 278 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 had happened 1— the house had been let directly, 
 the daughter not finding it convenient to live 
 there ; and it was now about to be sold. Yes, the 
 will was perfectly sound, not contested by an}'- 
 one; had been proved in due form, and admi- 
 nistered to, and all formalities fulfilled — except 
 in this important particular of carrying it out. 
 Old Trevor's throat grew dry as he listened, the 
 colour went out of his face. 
 
 " But— but — but — " he said, " was it allowed 
 — was it permitted ? Why wasn't it put a stop 
 to ? You must be making a mistake. Nobody 
 can go against a will. A will ! You forget what 
 you're saying — a will is part of the law." 
 
 "Who was to put a stop to if?" said St. Clair 
 calmly. " Who was to interfere ? There were 
 several brothers and sisters, and none of them 
 wanted the house to stand empty though the 
 father so willed it. Whose business was it to 
 stand up for the will? There was no one to 
 interfere." 
 
 " That is the most wonderful thing I ever 
 heard in my life. The most wonderful thing !"
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 279 
 
 said the old man, stammering and stumbling. 
 " I cannot understand it. A will — and they 
 paid no attention to it. I never heard of such a 
 thing in my life." 
 
 <; Oh ! I have heard of a great many such 
 things," said St. Clair, and he gave a little 
 sketch— which, indeed, was interesting— of care- 
 ful testaments set aside by the law, or made 
 null by some trifling omission, or solemnly 
 ignored by the very heirs they appointed. It 
 was a cruel joke. Poor old Trevor did not get 
 over it for a long time. He sat and thought of 
 it all the rest of the day. Who was to inter- 
 fere? who was to make sure that anybody 
 would do as he had ordained — would take upon 
 them the trouble of superintending all Lucy's 
 actions, and following out his code ? He had 
 Ford up when St. Clair left, and talked to him 
 long on the subject, not betraying his fears, but 
 cunningly endeavouring to pledge him, over and 
 over, to the carrying out of his views. " You 
 would not see my will neglected after I'm gone? 
 If the others should be careless, or refuse the
 
 280 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 trouble, you'd always see justice done, Ford? 
 I am sure I can trust in you whatever happens," 
 the old man said. 
 
 " The best thing to do is to get the will signed, 
 and sealed and delivered," said Ford, " that is 
 the first way of making it sure. So long as you 
 are adding a little bit every day, you can never 
 be certain. Yes, yes ! you may trust in me, 
 Mr. Trevor. I would never dare to go against 
 a dead person's will. I'd expect to be haunted 
 every night of my life. You may trust in me ; 
 but I can't answer for others. I have charge of 
 half of the time, no more. I can't answer for 
 others ; — Lady Randolph will pay little attention 
 to me." 
 
 "Lady Randolph will pay attention to her own 
 interests," said the old man. 
 
 " Ah ! that she will," cried Ford with energy. 
 There was much more meaning in the tone than 
 in the words ; and the inference was not agreea- 
 ble to old Trevor, who retired within himself, 
 and sat for the rest of the afternoon with a very 
 serious face ruminating how to invent safeguards
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 281 
 
 for the will, which, however, he would not sign, 
 as Ford suggested. " There's something more 
 I want to put in," the old man said pettishly. 
 " I'll try to wind it all up to-morrow." But as 
 a matter of fact, he did not want to wind it all 
 up, or conclude the document. When he did so, 
 his occupation would be gone. It would be the 
 conclusion of all things. With a natural shrink- 
 ing he thrust this last action from him, not- 
 withstanding the composure with which he had 
 long regarded his own death as something 
 necessary to the fulfilment of his intentions. But 
 he did not feel disposed to put his final seal to 
 it, and dismiss himself out of the world with a 
 stroke of his pen. To-morrow was soon enough. 
 When Lucy returned from school, she found him 
 shivering by the fire. It was a cold day, but he 
 was chilled by more than the weather ; chilled in 
 his vivacious spirit, which had done more to 
 keep him warm than his good fire, or warmly 
 lined dressing-gown. " Xo, I am not ill," he 
 said, in answer to her inquiries, u not at all 
 poorly, only low, Lucy. If you and the rest
 
 282 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 should throw me overboard after I am gone ! if 
 it should turn out that I have taken all this 
 trouble for nothing : thinking of you night and 
 day, and planning for your good and your 
 happiness. If it should be all for nothing, 
 Lucy !" 
 
 " But how could that be." said Lucy with 
 her usual calm, " when you have been so parti- 
 cular — when you have written it all down f 
 
 " Yes, I have written it all down," he said, 
 " and it can't come to nothing, if yon will be 
 a good girl, and take care that all your old 
 father's wishes are carried out." 
 
 "Papa, Ipromiseyou, all you have arranged about 
 me, and all your wishes for me, shall be carried 
 out," said Lucy with a very slight emphasis 
 upon the pronoun, which indicated a mental re- 
 servation ; but her father did not notice this. 
 His voice already enfeebled took a coaxing, 
 beseeching tone. 
 
 "I'll not fear anything, I'll try not to fear 
 anything, if you'll give me your promise. Give 
 me your promise, Lucy," he said, and Lucy
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 283 
 
 repeated with more effusion, when she saw the 
 feverish uneasiness in which he was, the promise 
 she had already made. 
 
 " Except about Jock," she said within herself ; 
 but even if she had said it aloud her father's 
 thoughts were too much bent on the general 
 question to have remarked this. Ford, who was 
 very anxious too, beckoned to her from behind 
 the screen, and whispered, " Get him to sign it, 
 ask him to sign it !" with the most energetic 
 gesticulations; but how could Lucy press such 
 a request upon her father ? They were all anxious 
 in the house that evening, and Mrs. Ford sat up 
 all night, and her husband lay on the sofa in 
 his clothes, fearing a midnight summons ; but 
 it was not till the next evening that the blow 
 came. When their anxiety had been softened, and 
 their precautions forgotten, the loud jar and 
 tinkle of the bell once more woke little Jock in 
 his little bed, and Ford from his comfortable 
 slumbers ; and this time it was no false alarm. 
 Old Trevor was seized at last by the paralytic 
 attack which had been hovering over him for
 
 284 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 some time. Ford going hastily for the doctor 
 caught a bronchitis which kept him in bed for a 
 week (just, his wife said, like a man— when he 
 is most wanted), but the old man had his death- 
 stroke. The house changed all at once, as sudden 
 and dangerous illness always changes the abode it 
 dwells in. All thought, all consideration were 
 merged in the sick-room. For the first few days 
 not even the affairs which he had left unsettled 
 were thought of. The poor chilly blue and white 
 drawing-room in which he had spent his days? 
 stood vacant, colder and more commonplace than 
 ever, yet with a pathos in its nakedness. The 
 blotting-book, with the big blue folio projecting 
 on every side, still lay on the writing-table where 
 it had lain so long ; but nobody touched it except 
 the housemaid who dusted it daily, and was 
 often tempted to take the sheaf of untidy papers 
 to light her fire. What would it have mattered 
 if she had lighted her fire with them ? The work 
 upon which the old man had spent so much of 
 his fading life was of little importance now. 
 No one thought of it except Ford, who at the
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 285 
 
 worst of his bronchitis mourned over the uncom- 
 pleted document. 
 
 " Will he ever come to himself, Doctor ? Will 
 he ever have the use of his faculties?" he 
 moaned ; but even this no one could tell. 
 
 The old man lay for more than a week in this 
 state of unconsciousness ; but after a time began 
 to give faint indications of returning intelli- 
 gence. He could not move nor speak, but his 
 eyes regained a gleam of meaning, and very 
 awful it was to see this re-awakening, and to 
 guess at the desires and feelings that awoke 
 dimly, coursing like lights and shadows, a 
 dumb language upon his countenance. One night 
 Lucy felt that his eyes were fixed upon her with 
 more meaning than before, and the three anxious 
 people gathered round the bed, questioning and 
 consulting each other. He was like a prisoner, 
 making faint half-distinguishable gestures be- 
 yond the bars of his prison, questions on which 
 deliverance might depend, but which the 
 watchers could not understand. Presently the 
 efforts increased, the powerless ashy old hand
 
 286 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 which lay on the coverlet, all the fingers in a 
 helpless heap together, began to flicker in vague 
 movement. Old Trevor's eyes had not been re- 
 markable for any force of expression, for nothing 
 indeed, save for the keenness of his seeing 
 when he was well. They had been small 
 and sharp, and of a reddish grey, with puckered 
 eyelids, making them smaller than they were by 
 nature. Now they seemed to stand out enlarged 
 and clear, and full of a spiritual force, which was 
 partly weakness and partly the feverish dumb 
 impotence of a desire to which he could not give 
 words. They all gathered closely round, as 
 anxious and not less helpless than he. Lucy 
 in her inexperience was driven desperate by this 
 crisis. She knelt down by the bedside, speaking 
 to him wildly, clasping her hands, and beseech- 
 ing, "What is it? What is it? Oh, papa, what 
 is it 1 Try and speak to me," she cried. This 
 hopeless kind of interrogation went on for some 
 time without any result, and they had all sub- 
 sided again into the quietness of despair, when 
 Lucy was suddenly enlightened by a movement
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 287 
 
 of the old man's crumpled fingers, which he had 
 managed to curve as if holding a pen. " He 
 wants to write," she said, hurrying to find a 
 pencil and paper, but these were rejected by an 
 indignant gleam from the sufferer's eyes. 
 
 "It is pen and ink he wants," Lucy cried in 
 desperation, yet tidy still ; " dear papa, this will 
 be easier, and it will not make stains : not 
 that ! Oh, what is it, then, you want ? what is . 
 it he wants ? can no one guess what it 
 is?" 
 
 " It is of no use," said Ford ; " he wants to 
 write, but he can't, that's the whole matter ; he 
 has something to tell us, but he can't. It's the 
 will, he has never signed the will. Doctor, is he 
 fit * would it be any good ?" 
 
 The doctor had just come in, and stood shaking 
 his head. 
 
 " Let him try," he said ; " I suppose it can't 
 do any harm, at least." 
 
 They thought they saw a softening of satisfac- 
 tion in the patient's eyes, and Ford ran to get 
 the papers, while they all gathered round, more
 
 288 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 like conspirators about to drag some forced con- 
 cession from the dying, than anxious attendants 
 seeking every means of satisfying a last desire. 
 Then the old man's lips began to move. To his 
 own consciousness he was evidently demanding 
 something, struggling, with his eyes almost 
 bursting from his head. They raised him up, 
 following the imperative demand made by his 
 face, and put the familiar document before him. 
 His eyes (they thought) brightened at the sight 
 of it ; something like a smile came upon his ashy 
 and somewhat contorted countenance. Though 
 he was supported like a log of wood by Ford and 
 Lucy, yet his skeleton figure, raised erect, took 
 an air of dominance and energy. He had reigned 
 in a fantastic visionary world where everything 
 was subject to his will w T hen he had composed 
 these papers, and something of the same senti- 
 ment was in his aspect now. He clutched the 
 pen in that bundle of bony fingers, then gave 
 a glance of triumph round upon them all, and 
 dabbed down the pen upon the paper with that 
 skeleton hand.
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 289 
 
 What had he put there? a blot, nothing 
 more. 
 
 A perception that he had not succeeded, a 
 gleam of anguish went over his face ; and then 
 grasping the pen with increased energy in a 
 wildly renewed effort, he brought it down in a 
 sea of ink, with a helpless daub as unmeaning 
 as before. Then a groan came from his 
 shrivelled bosom ; he let the pen drop, and dropped 
 himself like a log of wood. 
 
 The doctor had been standing by all the time, 
 shaking his head ; he interfered now in a passion- 
 less easy tone. 
 
 " There is no harm done," he said ; " it could 
 not have stood had he succeeded ; nobody could 
 have said his mind was in a fit state. Don't 
 take it away, but wait and have patience. After 
 this he may mend, most likely he will 
 mend." 
 
 "Papa," cried Lucy, close to his ear, "do 
 you hear that? You are not to mind, you 
 will still be able to do it. Do you hear, 
 papa?" 
 
 vol. I. u
 
 290 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 The old man made no response. Another 
 groan, the very utterance of despair, broke from 
 him. His eyes closed, his bony fingers fell on 
 the coverlet, a collection of contracted joints, 
 helpless as they had been before. He made a 
 half fling of intended movement, without strength 
 to carry his intention out. What he wanted 
 was evidently to turn his head from the light, 
 to turn the countenance to the wall ; what image 
 is there which speaks more eloquently of that 
 despair which is moral death*? The spectators 
 stood by mournfully, with but half a sense of 
 the full tragic meaning of the scene, yet vaguely 
 impressed by it, feeling something of the horrible 
 sense of failure, tragical, yet stupefying, which 
 invaded all the half-awakened faculties of the chief 
 sufferer. Even now they were but half aware of 
 it, Lucy looking on with infinite pity and awe, 
 struggling to assure the half-deafened ear that 
 it did not matter, that all would be well, while 
 the Fords, quickened by self-interest, realised 
 with a dull dismay the loss, the misfortune, which 
 would affect themselves. But the real tragedy
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 291 
 
 remained concentrated in that worn-out old 
 body and imprisoned soul. How much of his 
 life was in those elaborate plans and settlements ! 
 and he had failed at the last moment to give 
 them the necessary warrant. The old man closed 
 his eyes, and, so far as his will went, flung him- 
 self away from the light, turned his face to the 
 wall, yet could not do even that, in the prostra- 
 tion of all his powers. 
 
 " If he can sleep, he may wake— himself ;" the 
 doctor said, doubtfully. It was just as likely he 
 might not wake at all. But the light was care- 
 fully shaded, and the nurse, who had no anxiety 
 to disturb her, and the calm of professional 
 serenity to keep her composed, took the place of 
 the other watchers. The doctor, who was in- 
 terested in an unusual " case," and who was a 
 young man, as yet without much practice, offered 
 to Ford, who was excited and worn out, to 
 remain, that there might be help at hand, and a 
 professional guarantee in case of any new in- 
 cident ; and this being settled, sent all the other 
 watchers to rest. Lucy, though she would fain 
 
 u 2
 
 292 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 have stayed with her father, fell asleep, how 
 could she help it ? after so many broken nights, 
 the moment her young head touched the pillow. 
 The Fords were more wakeful, and retired, more 
 to consult together than to sleep, talking in 
 whispers, though nothing they could have said 
 on the upper floor could have reached the sick- 
 room, and full of alarm and trouble as to the 
 consequences of the failure. Mrs. Ford, for her 
 part, employed this moment of relief chiefly in 
 crying and mourning over " their luck," which 
 no doubt would be enough to secure that the old 
 man should die without signing the charter of 
 their privileges. But even the whispering and 
 weeping came to an end at last, and all was still 
 in the house, where the doctor occupied the for- 
 saken drawing-room, so bare and chilly, and the 
 nurse watched in the silent chamber, and old 
 Trevor lay between life and death. 
 
 The only one of the family who could not rest 
 was little Jock. Who does not remember that 
 sleeplessness of childhood which is more desolate 
 and more restless in its contradiction of nature,
 
 THE SIGNING OP THE WILL. 293 
 
 and innocent vacancy, than even the maturer 
 misery of wakeful nights all rustling full of care 
 and thought ? Jock had been waked out of his 
 first sleep by the muffled coming and going, the 
 sound of subdued steps and whispering voices. 
 He had heard a great deal which " the family " 
 are never supposed to hear. He heard the 
 doctor's whispered conference with the Fords in 
 the passage. " I can say nothing with certainty," 
 the doctor had said ; " if he can sleep he may be 
 himself in the morning, and able to attend to 
 his business." " Or he may pass away," Mr. 
 Ford had said ; " at the dawning. That is the 
 time when they get their release." Pass away ! 
 Jock wondered, with a shiver, what it meant. 
 Visions flitted before his eyes of his father's 
 figure, like that of Time, which he had seen on 
 an old almanack, his grey locks flying behind 
 him, and a long staff in his hand. Where would 
 he go to in the dark, or at the dawning ? Jock 
 tried to turn his face to the wall, away from the 
 long mysterious window, which attracted his 
 gaze in spite of himself, and through which he
 
 294 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 almost expected to see some weird passenger step 
 forth. His door was open, as he liked to have 
 it, and the faint light shining through it usually 
 afforded him a little consolation; but on this 
 particular night, , among its vague horrors, this 
 too became a dangerous opening, through which 
 some terrible figure might suddenly appear. He 
 was obliged to turn round again, to keep both 
 door and window within sight. And all kinds 
 of visions flitted before him. The noise of a 
 waggon far off on the road, across the Common, 
 suggested the dead-cart of the Plague, rolling 
 heavily, stopping here and there to take up its 
 horrible load. He seemed to hear the bell tinkle, 
 the heavy tramp of the attendants ; and at any 
 moment the child felt the door might be pushed 
 open, and some one come to take him away, and 
 toss him among all those confused limbs and 
 dead faces. Or was it his father whom they 
 would seize as he "passed away," with his grey 
 hair blown about by the winds? Then Jock's 
 imagination changed the theme, and he was in 
 the valley of death with Christian, hearing all
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 295 
 
 those horrible whispers on every side, and look- 
 ing into the mouth of Hell. He did everything 
 he could to get to sleep ; he counted, as far as 
 his knowledge of numbers would go, and said to 
 himself all the poetry he knew ; but all was of 
 no avail. When he began to see the walls of his 
 little room grow more distinct round him in a faint 
 blueness, Jock was not encouraged by the prospect 
 of daybreak. He thought of what Mr. Ford had 
 said, and of the people who were " released " at 
 the dawning, and he could not bear it any longer ; 
 he sprang from his bed, and rushed towards the 
 light in the passage, a light which was more 
 cheerful, more re-assuring, than the pale begin- 
 ning of the day. The door of his father's room 
 was ajar, and the light was burning within, and 
 a faint glimmer as of firelight. Jock crept in, 
 trembling and shivering, in his little white night- 
 gown, like an incarnation oi the white cold 
 tremulous infantile day. 
 
 Jock stole in very quietly, feeling protection 
 in the warmth and stillness ; he edged his way in 
 the shadow of the curtains, drawing instinctively
 
 296 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 towards the fire ; but afraid of being seen and 
 turned out again. He was afraid, yet he was 
 very curious and anxious about the bed, in which 
 he knew his father was lying. The curtains at 
 the head were thrown back, twisted and pushed 
 out of the way to give more air; and there the 
 pale grey head of the old man revealed itself on 
 the pillow, lying motionless. Jock stopped short 
 with a sob in his throat, and terror, too intense 
 for expression, in his soul. His father had not 
 "passed away;" but whether he was alive or 
 dead, Jock could not tell. The nurse was dozing 
 in the stillness, in her chair by the fire. The 
 day was rising, penetrating, even here, between 
 the closed curtains, with that chill all-pervading 
 blueness; it was the moment when every watch 
 relaxes, when the strain is relieved, and weari- 
 ness makes itself felt. Not a sound was to be 
 heard, except now and then the ashes falling, 
 and the breathing of the strange woman in the 
 big chair, who was almost as alarming an object 
 to Jock, as his father. The child stood shiver-
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 297 
 
 ing, his mouth half open to cry, the sob arrested 
 by pure terror, in his throat. 
 
 And whether it was that the sob escaped un- 
 awares, or that some sense of the presence of 
 another living creature in the room, that subtle 
 consciousness with wmich the atmosphere seems 
 to penetrate itself, of a living and thinking soul 
 in it — reached the old man on the bed it is 
 impossible to say : but while Jock stood watching 
 his father suddenly opened his eyes, and turned, 
 ever so little, yet turned towards him. Jock was 
 not aware that the old man had been up to this 
 time unable to move, but his imagination was 
 excited, and the instantaneous revival into awful 
 life of the mute figure on the bed, produced the 
 strangest effect upon him. A wild scream burst 
 from his lips, he ran out to the stairs crying 
 wildly. " He has got his release," Jock cried } 
 not knowing what he said. 
 
 The cry woke the nurse, brought the young 
 doctor, drowsy and confused, from the next room, 
 and Lucy flying, all her fair locks about her 
 shoulders, downstairs. The Fords followed more
 
 298 THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 slowly, the very maids were roused. But the 
 release which the old man had got was not of 
 the kind anticipated by his companions. He was 
 liberated from the disease, which nobody had 
 hoped ; he had recovered his speech, though his 
 utterance was greatly changed and impeded ; and, 
 though one side remained powerless, he retained 
 the use of the other. He was even so much 
 himself as to chuckle feebly, but quietly, when the 
 doctor returned a few hours later, and pronounced 
 him to be almost miraculously better. "I'll 
 trouble you, Doctor, to witness it," the old man said, 
 babbling over the words, and looking with his 
 enlarged but dimmed eyes at the papers by his 
 bedside. " I've got something to add ; but I'll 
 not put off and cheat myself, not put off and 
 cheat myself again." This they thought was 
 what he said. And thus the will got signed at 
 last. 
 
 He lingered for some time after, continually 
 endeavouring to resume his old work, and now and 
 then becoming sufficiently articulate to give full 
 evidence of the perfect possession of his faculties.
 
 THE SIGNING OF THE WILL. 299 
 
 But within a week a third seizure carried off the 
 old man without power of protest or remedy. 
 His unexpressed intentions died with him, but 
 the words " I've something to add," were the last 
 he said. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 London : Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.
 
 
 y*m 
 
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 *s 

 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOI8-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 045955066