"Some people deserve to be fortunate, Isabel," said Kitty, caressing Elizabeth's hand, in order to soften down the effect of Mrs. Heron's sub-acid speech. But Elizabeth did not seem to be annoyed by it. She was thinking of other things.

"I am sure that if any one deserves it, Elizabeth does," said Mrs.

Heron, recovering her usual placidity of demeanour. "She has always been good and kind to everyone around her. I tremble to think of what will become of dear Harry, and Will, and Jack."

"What should become of them?" said Kitty, in a startled tone.

"When Elizabeth leaves us"--Mrs. Heron murmured, applying her handkerchief to her eyes--"the poor children will know the difference."

"But you won't leave us, will you, Elizabeth?" cried Kitty, clinging more closely to her cousin, and looking up to her with tears in her eyes. "You wouldn't go away from us, after living with us all these years, darling? Oh, I thought that you loved us as if you were really our own sister, and that nothing would ever take you away!"

Still Elizabeth did not speak. Kitty's brown head rested on her shoulder, and she stroked it gently with one hand. Her lips were very grave, but her eyes, as she raised them for a moment to Percival's face, had a smile hidden in their hazel depths--a smile which he could not understand, and which, therefore, made him angry. He rose and stood on the hearth-rug with his hands behind him, as he delivered his little homily for Kitty's benefit.

"I suppose you do not expect that Elizabeth will care to sacrifice herself all her life for us and the children," he said. "It would be as unreasonable of you to ask it as it would be foolish of her to do it. Of course, she will now begin to enjoy the world a little. She has had few enough enjoyments, hitherto--we need not grudge them to her now."

But one would have thought that he himself, grudged them to her considerably.

"What do you mean to do, Lizzie?" said Kitty, dolefully, "shall you take a house in town? or will you go and live in Scotland--all that long, long way from us? And shall you"--lifting her face rather wistfully--"shall you keep any horses and dogs?"

Elizabeth laughed; she could not help it, although her laugh brought an additional pucker to the forehead of one of her hearers, who could not detect the tremulousness that lurked behind the clear, ringing tones.

"It is well for you to laugh," he said, gloomily, "and, of course, you have the right, but----"

"How interesting it will be," Mrs. Heron's, pensive voice was understood to murmur, when Percival's gruff speech had come to a sudden conclusion, "to notice the use dear Lizzie makes of her wealth! I wonder what her income will be, and whether the Luttrells' kept up a large establishment."

"Oh," said Elizabeth, suddenly loosening herself from Kitty's arms and standing erect before them with a face that paled and eyes that deepened with emotion, "does it not occur to you through what trouble and misery this 'good fortune,' as you call it, has come to me? Does it not seem wrong to you to plan what pleasure I can get out of it, when you think of that poor mother sitting at home and mourning over her two sons--two young, strong men--dead in the very prime of life? And Miss Vivian, too, with her spoiled life and her shattered hopes--she once expected to be the mistress of the very house that they now call mine! I hate the thought of it. Please never speak to me as if it were a matter for congratulation. I should be heartily glad--heartily thankful--if Brian Luttrell were alive again!"

She sat down, and put her elbows on the table and her hands over her face. The others looked at her in amaze. Percival turned to the fire and stared into it very hard. Mrs. Heron, who was rather afraid of what she called "Elizabeth's high-flown moods," murmured a suggestion to Kitty that she ought to go to the children, and glided languidly away, beckoning her step-daughter to follow her.

Percival did not speak until Elizabeth raised her face, and then he was uncomfortably conscious that she had been crying--at least, that her long eyelashes were wet, and that in other circumstances he might have felt a desire to kiss the tears away. But this desire, if he had it, must now be carefully controlled. He did not look at her, therefore, when he spoke.

"Your feeling is somewhat over-strained, Elizabeth. We are all sorry for the Luttrells' trouble; but it is absurd to say that we must not be glad of your good fortune."

Elizabeth rose up with her eyes ablaze and her cheeks on fire.

"You know that you are not glad!" she said, almost passionately. "You know that you would rather see me poor--see me the nursery-maid, the Cinderella, that you are so fond of calling me!"

"Well," said Percival, with a short laugh, "for my own sake, perhaps, I would."

"And so would I," said Elizabeth.

"But you know, Lizzie, you will get over that feeling in time. You will find pleasure in your riches and your beauty; you will learn what enjoyment means--which you have had small chance of finding out, hitherto, in this comfortable household!" He laughed rather bitterly.

"You are in the chrysalis state at present; you don't know what it is to be a butterfly. You will like that better--in time."

"I will never be a butterfly--God helping me!" said Elizabeth. She spoke solemnly, with a noble light in her whole face which made it more than beautiful. Percival turned away his eyes from it; he did not dare to look. "If I have had wealth given me," said the girl, "I will use it for worthy ends. Others shall benefit by it as well as myself."

"Don't squander it, Lizzie," said Percival, with a cynical smile, designed to cover the exceeding sadness and soreness of his heart. "Your philanthropist is not often the wisest person in the world."

"No, but I will try to use it wisely," she said, with a touch of meekness in her voice which made him feel madly inclined to fall down and kiss the very hem of her garment--or rather the lowest flounce of her shabby, dark-blue, serge gown--"and my friends will see that I do not spend it foolishly. You do not think it would be foolish to use it for the good of others, do you, Percival? I suppose I shall be thought very eccentric if I do not take a large house in London, or go much into society; but, indeed, I should not be happy in spending money in those ways----"

"Why, what on earth do you mean to do?" said Percival, sharply. "I see that you have some plan in your head; I should just like to know what it is."

She was standing beside him on the hearth-rug, and she looked up at his face and down again before she answered.

"Yes," she said, seriously, "I have a plan."

"And you mean that I have no right to inquire what it is? You are perfectly correct; I have no right, and I beg your pardon for the liberty that I have taken. I think that I had better go."

His manner was so restless, his voice so uneven and so angry, that Elizabeth lifted her eyes and studied his face a little before she replied.

"Percival," she said at last, "why are you so angry with me?"

"I'm not angry with you."

"With whom or with what, then?"

"With circumstances, I suppose. With life in general," he answered, bitterly, "when it sets up such barriers between you and me."

"What barriers?"

"My dear Elizabeth, you used to have faculties above those of the rest of your sex. Don't let your new position weaken them. I have surely not the least need to tell you what I mean."

"You overrate my faculties," said Elizabeth. "You always did. I never do know what you mean unless you tell me. I am not good at guessing."

"You need not guess then; I'll tell you. Don't you see that I am in a very unfortunate position? I said to you the other night that I--I loved you, that I would teach you to love me; and I could have done it, Elizabeth! I am sure that you would have loved me in time."

"Well?" said Elizabeth, softly. Her lips were slightly tremulous, but they were smiling, too.

"Well!" repeated her cousin. "That's all. There's an end to it. Do you think I should ever have breathed a word into your ear if I had known what I know now?"

"The fact being," said Elizabeth, "that your pride is so much stronger than your love, that you would never tell a woman you loved her if she happened to have a few pounds more than you."

"Exactly so," he answered, stubbornly.

"Then--as a matter of argument only, Percival--I think you are wrong."

"Wrong, am I? Do you think that a man likes to take gifts from his wife's hands? Do you think it is pleasant for me to hear you offer compensation to my father for the trifle that he has spent on you during the last few years, and not to be in a position to render such an offering unnecessary? I tell you it is the most galling thing in the world, and, if for one moment you thought me capable of speaking to you as I did the other night, now that I know you to be a wealthy woman, I could never look you in the face again. If I seem angry you must try to forgive me; you know me of old--I am always detestable when I am in pain--as I am now."

He struck his foot angrily against the fender; his handsome face was drawn and lined with the pain of which he spoke.

"Be patient, Percival," she said, with a smile which seemed to mock him by its very sweetness. "As you say to me, you may think differently in time."

"And what if I do think differently? What good will it be?" he asked her. "I am not patient; I am not resigned to my fate, and I never shall be; does it make the loss of my hopes any easier to bear when you tell me that I shall think differently in time? You might as well try to make a man with a broken leg forget his pain by telling him that in a hundred years' time he will be dead and buried!"

The tears stood in her eyes. She seemed startled by the intense energy with which he spoke; her next words scarcely rose above a whisper.

"Percival," she said, "I don't like to see you suffer."

"Then I will leave you," he said, sternly. "For, if I stay, I can't pretend that I do not feel the pain of losing you."