burden of her inheritance than of
its opportunities. All that vivid castle-building gift which was
specially hers, and would revive, was at present in abeyance. She had
pined once for power and freedom, that she might make a Kingdom of
Heaven of her own, quickly. Now power and freedom, up to a certain
point, were about to be put into her hands; and instead of plans for
acting largely and bountifully on a plastic outer world, she was saying
to herself, hungrily, that unless she had something close to her to love
and live for, she could do nothing. If her mother would end these
unnatural doubts, if she would begin to make friends with her own
daughter, and only yield herself to be loved and comforted, why _then_
it might be possible to think of the village and the straw-plaiting!
Otherwise--the girl's attitude as she sat dreaming in the sun showed her
despondency.

She was roused by her mother's voice calling her from the other end of
the _pergola_.

"Yes, mamma."

"Will you come in? There are some letters."

"It is the will," thought Marcella, as Mrs. Boyce turned back to the
hotel, and she followed.

Mrs. Boyce shut the door of their sitting-room, and then went up to her
daughter with a manner which suddenly struck and startled Marcella.
There was natural agitation and trouble in it.

"There is something in the will, Marcella, which will, I fear, annoy and
distress you. Your father inserted it without consulting me. I want to
know what you think ought to be done. You will find that Lord Maxwell
and I have been appointed joint executors."

Marcella turned pale.

"Lord Maxwell!" she said, bewildered. "_Lord Maxwell--Aldous_! What do
you mean, mamma?"

Mrs. Boyce put the will into her hands, and, pointing the way among the
technicalities she had been perusing while Marcella was still lingering
in the garden, showed her the paragraph in question. The words of the
will were merely formal: "I hereby appoint," &c., and no more; but in a
communication from the family solicitor, Mr. French, which Mrs. Boyce
silently handed to her daughter after she had read the legal
disposition, the ladies were informed that Mr. Boyce had, before
quitting England, written a letter to Lord Maxwell, duly sealed and
addressed, with instructions that it should be forwarded to its
destination immediately after the writer's burial. "Those instructions,"
said Mr. French, "I have carried out. I understand that Lord Maxwell was
not consulte