h a nature that they parted in
anger, never to meet again.

"Shortly after this quarrel old Sir Robert died; and Alexander Moncton
came in for the estates and title. Your father and uncle, both being
now of age, entered upon the great business of life. Your father
resumed the business bequeathed to him by his father, and your uncle
entered into partnership with the firm, of which he now stands the head
and sole proprietor.

"Several years passed away. The only intercourse between the families
was through Sir Alexander and his cousin Robert, who, in spite of the
young Baronet's aversion, contrived to stick to him like a bur, until
he fairly wriggled himself into his favour. At thirty, Sir Alexander
still remained a bachelor, and seemed too general an admirer of the sex
to resign his liberty to any particular _belle_.

"About this period of my story one of Sir Alexander's game-keepers was
shot by a band of poachers, who infested the neighbourhood. Richard
North, the husband of Dinah, had made himself most obnoxious to these
lawless depredators, and thus fell a victim to his over-zeal.

"Sir Alexander considered himself bound in honour to provide for the
widow and her daughter of his faithful servant, particularly as the
former had been left without any means of support. Both mother and
daughter were received into his service--Dinah as housekeeper at the
Hall, and her daughter Rachel as upper chamber-maid.

"Dinah, at that period, was not more than thirty-four years of age, and
for a person of her class was well educated, and uncommonly handsome. I
see you smile, Geoffrey, but such was the fact.

"Rachel, who was just sixteen, was considered a perfect model of female
beauty, by all the young fellows who kept Bachelors' Hall with Sir
Alexander. The young Baronet fell desperately in love with his fair
dependent, and the girl and her mother entertained hopes that he would
make her his wife. Pride, however, hindered him from making her Lady
Moncton. In order to break the spell that bound him he gave the mother
a pretty cottage on the estate, and a few acres of land rent-free, and
went up to London to forget, amid its gay scenes, the bright eyes that
had sorely wounded his peace.

"Dinah North was not a woman likely to bear with indifference the pangs
of disappointed ambition. She bitterly reproached her daughter for
having played her cards so ill, and vowed vengeance on the proud lord
of the manor, in curses loud and d