inherit the family name and embarrass the
family resources. At present there were five of these boys, but as the
family resources were exceedingly large, and Sir John was a most
affectionate parent, the advent of each had been hailed with increasing
satisfaction.

It was a great relief to Sir John's mind to find that his wife and his
sister were such good friends. He might be a manipulator of man, but he
was not--he acknowledged to himself--always successful in his
manipulation of women. If Selina had found Nan in the way, or if Nan had
been jealous of Selina and Selina's babies, Sir John felt that he would
have been placed on the horns of a dilemma. But this had not been the
case. Nan was in the schoolroom when Lady Pynsent first arrived at
Culverley, and the child had been treated with kindness and discretion.
Nan repaid the kindness by an extravagant fondness for her little
nephews, who treated her abominably, and the discretion by an absolute
surrender of her will to Lady Pynsent's as far as her intercourse with
the outer world was concerned. With her inner life, she considered that
Lady Pynsent had not much to do, and it was in its manifestation that
Sir John observed the signs which made him anxious.

Nan, he said to himself, was a handsome girl, and one whom many men were
sure to admire. Also, she had sixty thousand pounds of her own, of which
she would be absolute mistress when she was twenty-one. It was a sum
which was sure to attract fortune-hunters; and how could he tell whether
Nan would not accept her first offer, and then stick to an unsuitable
engagement with all the obstinacy which she was capable of displaying?
Nan sometimes made odd friends, and would not give them up at anybody's
bidding. How about the man she married? She would have her own way in
that matter--Sir John was sure of it--and, after refusing all the
eligible young men within reach, would (he told his wife repeatedly) end
by taking up with a crooked stick at last.

"I don't think she'll do that," said Lady Pynsent when her husband
appealed in this way to her. "Nan is very _difficile_. She is more
likely to remain unmarried than marry an unsuitable man."

"Unmarried!" Sir John threw up his hands. "She _must_ marry! Why, if she
doesn't marry, she is just the girl to take up a thousand fads--to make
herself the laughing-stock of the county!"

"She will not do that; she has too much good taste."

"Good taste won't avail her! You know w