it will be at least a
competency; and I was thinking, John, that if you did not want Kynaston,
and would let them live there, the marriage might come off at last; they
have been attached to each other a long time, and to live rent free would
be a great thing."

"How are they to keep it up? Kynaston is an expensive place."

"Well, I thought, John, perhaps, if Maurice looks after the property, you
might consider him as your agent, and allow him something, and that and
her money----"

"Yes, yes, I understand; well, I will see; wait, at all events, till Mr.
Harlowe is dead. I will think it over. No, I don't see any reason why
they should not live there if they like;" he sighed, wearily, and his
mother went away, feeling that she had reason to be satisfied with her
morning's work.

She was in such a hurry to install her darling there--to see him viceroy
in the place where now it was certain he must eventually be king. Why
should he be doomed to wait till Kynaston came to him in the course of
nature; why should he not enter upon his kingdom at once, since Sir John,
by his own confession, would never marry or live there himself?

Lady Kynaston was very far from wishing evil to her eldest son, but for
years she had hoped that he would remain unmarried; for a short time she
had been forced to lay her dreams aside, and she had striven to forget
them and to throw herself with interest into her eldest son's engagement;
but now that the marriage was broken off, all her old schemes and plans
came back to her again. She was working and planning again for Maurice's
happiness and aggrandisement. She wanted to see him in his father's
house, "Kynaston of Kynaston," before she died, and to know that his
future was safe. To see him married to Helen and living at Kynaston
appeared to her to be the very best that she could desire for him. In
time, of course, the title and the money would be his too; meanwhile,
with old Mr. Harlowe's fortune, an ample allowance from his brother, and
all the prestige of his old name and his old house, she should live to
see him take his own rightful place among the magnates of his native
county. That would be far better than to be a captain in a line regiment,
barely able to live upon his income. That was all she coveted for him,
and she said to herself that her ambition was not unreasonable, and that
it would be hard indeed if it might not be gratified.

As she drove homewards to Walpole Lodge she felt