father's chair was empty.

The vague crowd were so immensely eager to pay their despicable court to
the Spade-Guinea Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the young,
the lame, the paralytic, all found means to creep in to Grandfather
Iden's annual dinner. His only son and natural heir was alone absent.
How eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time at that empty
chair, hoping against hope that her dear father would come in at the
Psalms, or even at the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious
hearts of the enemies around her.

For well she knew how delighted they were to see his chair empty, as a
visible sign and token of the gulf between father and son, and well she
knew how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding and set
fuel to the flame of the quarrel. If the son were disinherited, consider
the enormous profit to the rest of them!

Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that he had not signed a
will. It was believed that several rough drafts had been sketched out
for him, but, in his own words--and he was no teller of falsehoods--he
had not decided on his will. If only they could persuade him to make his
will they might feel safe of something; but suppose he went off pop, all
in a moment, as these extraordinarily healthy old people are said to do,
and the most of his estate in land! Consider what a contingency--almost
all of it would go to his own son. Awful thing!

Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her and quizzed her over and
over; her hair, her face, her form, but most of all her dress. They were
so poor at home she had not had a new dress this twelvemonth past; it
was true her dress was decent and comfortable, and she really looked
very nice in it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a comfortable
dress, she wants something in the style of the day, and just
sufficiently advanced to make the women's eyes turn green with envy. It
is not the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.

Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned, trying with all her might
to make them feel she was the Heiress, not only an only son's only
daughter, but the only son's only offspring--doubly the Heiress of
Grandfather Iden.

The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied so soon as she was
born that there would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so it fell
out. For it had been noticed in the course of generations, that in the
direct line of Iden when the first child was