marvellous change. She
wept when she heard of Dino's death; but her affection for Brian, and
also for Elizabeth, proved to be strong and unwavering. Her great
desire--that the properties of Netherglen and Strathleckie should be
united--was realised in a way of which she had never dreamt. Brian
himself believed firmly that he was of Italian parentage and that Dino
Vasari was the veritable heir of the Luttrells; but the notion was now
so painful to Mrs. Luttrell, that he never spoke of it, and agreed, as
he said to Elizabeth, to be recognised as the master of Netherglen and
Strathleckie under false pretences. "For the whole estate, to tell the
truth, is yours, not mine," he said. And she: "What does that matter,
since we are man and wife! There is no 'mine and thine' in the case. It
is all yours and all mine; for we are one."

In fact, no words were more applicable to Brian and Elizabeth than the
quaint lines of the old poet:

"They were so one, it never could be said
Which of them ruled and which of them obeyed.
He ruled because she would obey; and she,
By her obeying, ruled as well as he.
There ne'er was known between them a dispute
Save which the other's will should execute."

The Herons returned to London shortly after Elizabeth's marriage, and
with them Kitty returned, too. But it was a very different Kitty from
the one who had frolicked at Strathleckie, or pined at Netherglen. The
widowed Mrs. Hugo Luttrell was a gentler, perhaps a sadder, woman than
Kitty Heron had promised to be: but she was a sweeter woman, and one who
formed the chief support and comfort to her father's large and irregular
household, as it passed from its home in Scotland to a more permanent
abode in Kensington. For the house in Gower-street, dear as it was to
Kitty's heart, was not the one which Mr. and Mrs. Heron preferred to any
other.

Little Jack, now slowly recovering from his affection of the spine,
found in Kitty the motherliness which he had sorely missed when
Elizabeth first went away. His affection was very sweet to Kitty. She
had never hitherto been more than a playmate to her step-brothers: she
was destined henceforward to be their chief counsellor and friend. And
the little baby-sister was almost as a child of her own to Kitty's
heart.

It was not until more than a year of quiet life in her father's home had
passed away that she saw much of Rupert Vivian. She was very shy and
silent with him when he