apparent heiress?"

"Yes."

"What does she expect to become of her?"

"How can I tell?"

"You can conjecture."

"She has not yet begun to consider, herself, you see."

"She has other property?"

"None."

"Ah! A fine thing, usurping!"

Mrs. Arles did not reply.

And then, in a half-angry justification, he exclaimed,--

"I didn't know there was such a person in the world! I could not come
immediately on Erne's death. I was ill, and I was busy, and I let things
wait for me. Why did no one write?"

"No one knew there was such a person as _you_. At least, no one supposed
it signified."

"Signified! The Rim was my father's as much as it was Disbrowe Erne's
father's. Disbrowe Erne's father entrapped mine, and got the other half.
It was the old story of Esau's pottage, with thrice the villany. My
father made me promise him on his death-bed, that, come fair means, The
Rim should be mine again. I was twenty, Erne was fifty. Fair means came.
Nevertheless, if I had known how things stood, I might have broken the
promise,--who knows?--if at that moment I had happened to possess
anything else in the world but my wardrobe, and sundry debts, and this!"

He opened, as he spoke, a purse that had seen service, and from his
lordly height and supreme indifference, scattered its contents on the
projecting top of the fireplace. They were two old pieces of ringing
Spanish silver, a tiny golden coin of Hindostan, a dime, and a pine-tree
shilling.

"Marlboro' won my last dollar," said he.

"Marlboro'?" said Mrs. Arles.

"What do you know of Marlboro'?"

"He lives over here at Blue Bluffs."

"The Devil he does!"

Mr. St. George Erne glanced at the dark little woman sitting before him.
No smile softened her face, no ray had lighted it; she only
intelligently observed, and monosyllabically answered him. She was a
study,--might also be convenient; the place would be ennuisome; somebody
must sit at the head of his table. He threw his purse into the fire.

"Mrs. Arles," he said, "it is decidedly necessary, that, to conduct my
house, there should be in it a female relative,--an article I do not
possess. Will you take the part, and remain with me on the same terms as
with my Cousin Erne?"

Mrs. Arles had intended to propose such an arrangement herself, and,
after a brief pause for apparent consideration, replied affirmatively,
not thinking it worth while to tell him that the section of the farm,
with its laborers, set apa