s a matter for you to decide, not for me. I told him that
I was only a half shareholder, but there was no necessity to say who
it was who had the other half. When I was talking to Philip Cotter, the
words 'my cousin' slipped out, but he did not associate it in any way
with you. It might have been the son of another brother or of a sister
of my father's."

"In that case, then, we will certainly make no change, will we, Mrs.
Cunningham?"

"I think, Millicent, that Mr. Prendergast and Mark will probably be of
opinion that you ought now to be introduced regularly into society. The
fact that you are a rich heiress might, as your father so much wished,
remain a secret. But it is one thing having this blazoned about and
quite another for you to be living quietly here, where, with the
exception of Mr. Cotter and a few other friends, you have no society
whatever. Certainly it was not the wish of your father that you should
remain unmarried. You are quite pretty and nice enough to be sought for
yourself alone, and I must say that I think, now that you have finished
with your various masters, it would be well that you should go out a
good deal more, and that as a first step we should go down to Bath this
year instead of paying another visit to Weymouth, as we had arranged."

"I don't want any change at all, Mrs. Cunningham. If I am to get married
I shall be married; if I am not I shall not fret about it."

"But for all that, Millicent," Mark said, "Mrs. Cunningham is right.
We quite agree that there is no occasion whatever for you to go about
labeled 'A good estate and over 70,000 pounds in cash,' but I do think
that it is right that you should go into society. With the exception of
Philip Cotter, Dick Chetwynd, and two or three other of my friends, you
really know very few people. You have now gone out of mourning, and I
think that Mrs. Cunningham's proposal that you should go down to Bath
is a very good one. I shall not be sorry for a change myself, for I have
been engrossed in my work for a long time now. I can go down a day or
two before you, and get you comfortable lodgings, and will myself
stay at a hotel. Although I have no intimate friends beyond those from
Reigate, I know a large number of men of fashion from meeting them at
the boxing schools and other places, and could introduce you both, and
get you into society."

"I am altogether opposed to the idea," Millicent said decidedly. "You
want to trot me out like a hor