"I am thankful that I have no name or position! I should like my husband to value me for myself, not for what I possessed!" cried Mollie quickly.

It gave her an uncomfortable feeling, amounting almost to an augury of ill, to hear Uncle Bernard talking of Margot Blount with such unusual interest. The first definite wish which he had expressed was in connection with her name; his last remarks virtually sanctioned with his approval any aspirations which Victor might secretly treasure. Lady Margot Blount could hardly be expected to marry a struggling barrister; but if that barrister were the possible heir of the Court, his importance became at once largely increased.

Victor was unfailing in his efforts to please his host, and the result of this conversation would inevitably be a closer intimacy with the Blount family, which, even if it led to nothing more serious, would of a certainty cloud Ruth's happiness. Mollie was by no means sure that she approved of Victor as a suitor for her beloved sister, but, with delightful inconsistency, she hated the idea of his daring to care for anyone else, and the thought lent an unwonted edge to her voice--

"It's horrid to talk about marriage in that mercenary fashion, as if it were a pure business arrangement. When I hear such remarks, I'm thankful that I haven't a penny piece in the world!"

"If that is your feeling, you would be in a most unfortunate position as the owner of the Court. It would be a pity to disturb your equanimity, my dear."

Mr Farrell stretched out his thin hands on his knees, looking at her with quizzical eyes, whereupon Mollie forgot her anger, and gave one of her gay, infectious laughs, nodding her head towards him in mischievous, new-found familiarity.

"Ah, you had me there! But I might be like Queen Bess, you know, and prize my kingdom above any man; or, if one came along whom I really wanted to marry, I'd send him to slay dragons and carry off golden apples, to prove his devotion and disinterestedness. Don't cut me off through any mistaken scruples, Uncle Bernard. I'd really make a delightful chatelaine, and I should enjoy it so! No one appreciates the real object of money more than I do!"

"And what is your idea of the 'real value,' if one may ask?"

"To spend, of course!" she answered audaciously. "It is the only thing to do, for if you keep it, it's just a dull collection of coins. I love spending! Now, if I became a big heiress to-morrow, would you like to know what I should do?"

"Extremely; it would be most interesting!" said Mr Farrell.

"Yes, Miss Mollie, do tell us!" urged Victor.

Jack looked up with a puckered brow, half amused, half anxious, and Ruth murmured a gentle "Mollie dear!" Mollie was not to be deterred by encouragement or warning. She lay back in her chair, tapping off each item on her fingers as she spoke, her face one beam of mischievous enjoyment.

"I'd settle annuities on all my relations and friends. I'd buy the most exquisite presents, and send them round to everyone who had been kind to me in my poor estate. I'd give huge donations to governess's Homes, and funds for poor gentlewomen, and send them flowers, and fruit, and game.

I'd go to Liberty's, and buy artistic furniture, and hire experts to superintend decorations, and, while the house was being put in order, I'd go a voyage round the world, and buy stacks of lovely things at every port, and see all the sights, and come home laden with spoils!

Then I'd settle down, and,"--she chuckled complacently--"I _would_ have a good time! I'd have every single thing I wanted, and never think of what it cost!"

"Until the bailiffs arrived; which would be surprisingly soon, I should imagine!" said Uncle Bernard drily. "You have not much idea of the responsibility of wealth, my dear. I prefer not to discuss the point, however. My own views, which are peculiar, are set forth in the Will which is lying in the desk in my room."

The four young people looked up sharply. The same question was on the lips of each; but it was Victor's eagerness which first found words--

"The Will?--Now! But surely--?"

Mr Farrell's lips twisted into a grim smile, as if he had of deliberate purpose provoked their curiosity.

"You are surprised that I have already come to a conclusion. It is by no means unchangeable; but, in the extremely precarious condition of my health, I do not think it safe to delay matters indefinitely. This Will was drawn up last week, and is based upon my impressions up to the present time. If I live it is extremely likely that I may alter my mind once and again; but it should be a comfort to you all to feel that, at the worst, I am not unprepared."

He looked from one to the other with the same faint, mocking smile, his gaze lingering on Ruth's troubled face. Her eyes expressed a questioning so intense as to be almost wild; then slowly they fell before his, and a crimson tide rushed over her cheeks.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

HARD AT WORK.

Preparations for Mrs Thornton's garden-party went on uninterruptedly during the next week, and grew in fervour as the great day approached.

Everybody had accepted, as the hostess announced with a groan and a laugh; and the vicar threatened to be called abroad on urgent business, so alarmed was he at the prospect of the fashionable throng which was to invade his shabby precincts. When, however, Mrs Thornton made up her mind to carry out a plan, she was not easily damped; and aided by Mollie and the younger members of her brood, she weeded, and forked, and clipped at the over-grown garden, until it really began to a.s.sume quite a presentable appearance.

"I daren't weed," Mollie explained, "for I'm a poor town thing, who would probably pull up your most cherished seedlings; but my arms are so strong that I can mow with the best, so I'll take the gra.s.s in hand, if someone else will trim the borders."

"But your face, my dear--your face!" cried Mrs Thornton, staring with dismay at the crimsoned countenance beneath the straw hat. "I'm ashamed to let you work so hard! What would your uncle say if he saw you now?"

"Something uncomplimentary, no doubt. I know I am magenta, but fortunately it isn't lasting. I asked Mr Druce if he would help me this morning, and do a little rolling into the bargain, but he would not give up his ride."

Mrs Thornton pursed up her lips, stared first at the ground, then at the sky, then across into Mollie's face.

"He is very fond of riding!" she said mysteriously. "I see him pa.s.s every morning, going in the same direction, and always alone. How is it that none of you ever go with him?"

"Jack Melland is still lame, and Ruth and I are only beginners. We have little canters together in the afternoons sometimes, but in the mornings he prefers to be free to go longer distances. He goes ever so far-- miles and miles. One morning last week he met Lady Margot Blount somewhere near the Moat."

"And one morning this week also, for my husband saw them together, and if I were inclined to gossip, I should say it was oftener than once. My dear Mollie, how charming! Are we going to have a love-story to enliven the summer? n.o.body ever gets engaged or married in this sleepy place, and this would be truly exciting! But I thought at one time--excuse my saying so, won't you, dear?--I quite thought he admired your sister, and that there might be a match there!"

"Of course, he admired her--no one could help it; but please never hint at anything of the sort to Ruth. She is very reserved, and would hate to be talked about!" cried Mollie hastily.

Across the lawn Ruth's graceful figure could be seen kneeling in front of a bed of flowers which she was fastening to supporting sticks in her usual neat, methodical fashion. No one could have recognised that bed as the same confused broken-down ma.s.s of blossom which it had been an hour earlier.

"There! now they do look as if someone loved them," said Ruth to herself, straightening her weary back, and brushing the soil off her fingers.

After the Thorntons' more casual work was over, she had made a careful round of the beds, giving those dainty finishing touches which add so largely to the effect. Now her work was finished, and, seeing Mrs Thornton and Mollie standing together, she rose stiffly, and walked across the lawn to meet them.

"Have you finished? I think I have really come to the end of the beds, and everything looks delightfully 'cared for'! I shall bring my camera down on Thursday, Mrs Thornton, and take some snapshots of your guests in pretty corners of the garden. Did you know I had taken the photographic fever? I bought myself a really, really nice camera, and I want to take mother a collection of views of the Court when we go home.

She will value it more than anything else, for I shall snap all her favourite bits in the grounds, and take the interiors with time- exposures. They will be nice to look at when we are away, and someone else reigns in our stead!"

She shrugged her shoulders as she spoke, and Mrs Thornton patted her arm with kindly encouragement.

"Nonsense--nonsense! You are tired, dear, and that makes you look at things through blue spectacles. Come into the house, and we will have tea, and discuss the great question of where my guests are to sit, if anything so dreadful as a shower should happen! Two armchairs, you see, half a dozen small ones, more or less unstable (if anyone over seven stone attempts the green plush there'll be a catastrophe!), and one sofa. Now, put your inventive brains together, and tell me what I can do. There is plenty of room for more furniture, but no money to buy it, alas!"

"Let them sit on the floor in rows; it would be ever so sociable!" said naughty Mollie.

Ruth knitted her brows thoughtfully.

"Have you any chair-beds? We could make quite elegant lounges of them, pushed up against the wall, covered with rugs and banked up with cushions; or even out of two boards propped up at the sides, if the worst came to the worst!"

"Oh-oh! Chair-beds! What an inspiration! I have two stored away in the attic. They are old and decrepit, but that doesn't matter a bit.

They will look quite luxurious when the mattresses are covered with sofa-blankets; but I don't know where the cushions are to come from. I only possess these three, and they must stay where they are to hide the patches in the chintz. I might perhaps borrow--"

"No, don't do anything of the kind. Use your pillows, and Ruth and I will make frilled covers out of art-muslin, at threepence a yard. They will look charming, and lighten up the dark corners. We are used to that sort of work at home. We made a cosy corner for the drawing-room out of old packing-cases and a Liberty curtain, and it is easier and more comfortable than any professional one I ever saw. The silly upholsterers always make the seats too high and narrow. We made a music ottoman of the inside, and broke our backs lining it, and our nails hammering in the tacks; but, dear me, how we did enjoy it, and how proud we were when it was accomplished for seventeen-and-six!

"I'm beginning to doubt," repeated Mollie solemnly, "whether it is half so amusing to be rich as it is to be poor. When you can get everything you want the moment you want it, you don't appreciate it half so much as when you have pined for it, and saved up your pennies for it, for months beforehand. When we get a new thing at home, the whole family pay visits to it like a shrine, and we open the door and go into the room where it is, one after the other, to study the effect, and gloat over it. It _is_ fun; isn't it, now? Confess that it is!"

"Ye-es," agreed Mrs Thornton doubtfully. "But where you have to wait too long, the sense of humour gets a little bit blunted, especially as one grows older, Mollie dear!"

She sighed as she spoke, and her eyes roved pensively round the discoloured walls, those same walls whose condition had fired Mollie to make her unsuccessful appeal. The girl's thoughts went back to that embarra.s.sing interview, not altogether regretfully, since it had ended in bringing about a better understanding between her uncle and herself.

Perhaps, though he had refused her request, it would linger in his mind, and lead to good results. Nothing but the unexpected was certain about Uncle Bernard.

The next afternoon the vicarage drawing-room presented a rather chaotic appearance, as Mrs Thornton and her a.s.sistants prepared the important couches. Ruth sat in the middle of the floor running up lengths of brightly coloured muslins on a sewing-machine, while the other two wrestled with the difficulties which attend all make-shifts. With the greatest regard for ease and luxury, the beds were p.r.o.nounced decidedly too low to look genuine, and the rickety legs had to be propped up with foundations manufactured out of old bound volumes of magazines, bricks from the garden, and an odd weight or two from the kitchen scales. The sofa-blankets also turned out to be too narrow, and persisted in disclosing the iron legs, until, in desperation, one end was sewn to the mattress, allowing the full width to hang down in front.

At last the work was finished, and the hot and dishevelled workers retired to the hall, and, re-entering the room to study the effect, in true Farrell manner, p.r.o.nounced the "divans" to look professional beyond all fear of detection.