f feature.
"What then? Why--nothing. Read."

He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to
Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother. All
three looked at each other, and all three smiled--a dreary, pensive smile
enough.

"Amen! We can yet live," said Diana at last.

"At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before," remarked
Mary.

"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what _might
have been_," said Mr. Rivers, "and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with
what _is_."

He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out.

For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me.

"Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries," she said, "and think us
hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a
relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was my
mother's brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by his
advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that
ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them: they parted in
anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged afterwards in more
prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a fortune of twenty
thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no near kindred but
ourselves and one other person, not more closely related than we. My
father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by
leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has
bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of
thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers,
for the purchase of three mourning rings. He had a right, of course, to
do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the
receipt of such news. Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with
a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been
valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do."

This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference
made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day I left
Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for
distant B-. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage:
and so the old grange was abandoned.

CHAPTER XXXI

My home, then, when I at last find a home,--is a cottage; a little room
with whitewashed walls an