" observed Mrs. Heron, putting
down the letters and smoothing out her dress. "Dear me, how strangely
things come round! Who would have dreamt, ten years ago, that you would
ever be richer than all of us--richer than your poor uncle, who was then
so kind to you! Some people are very fortunate!"

"Some people deserve to be fortunate, Isabel," said Kitty, caressing
Elizabeth's hand, in order to soften down the effect of Mrs. Heron's
sub-acid speech. But Elizabeth did not seem to be annoyed by it. She was
thinking of other things.

"I am sure that if any one deserves it, Elizabeth does," said Mrs.
Heron, recovering her usual placidity of demeanour. "She has always been
good and kind to everyone around her. I tremble to think of what will
become of dear Harry, and Will, and Jack."

"What should become of them?" said Kitty, in a startled tone.

"When Elizabeth leaves us"--Mrs. Heron murmured, applying her
handkerchief to her eyes--"the poor children will know the difference."

"But you won't leave us, will you, Elizabeth?" cried Kitty, clinging
more closely to her cousin, and looking up to her with tears in her
eyes. "You wouldn't go away from us, after living with us all these
years, darling? Oh, I thought that you loved us as if you were really
our own sister, and that nothing would ever take you away!"

Still Elizabeth did not speak. Kitty's brown head rested on her
shoulder, and she stroked it gently with one hand. Her lips were very
grave, but her eyes, as she raised them for a moment to Percival's face,
had a smile hidden in their hazel depths--a smile which he could not
understand, and which, therefore, made him angry. He rose and stood on
the hearth-rug with his hands behind him, as he delivered his little
homily for Kitty's benefit.

"I suppose you do not expect that Elizabeth will care to sacrifice
herself all her life for us and the children," he said. "It would be as
unreasonable of you to ask it as it would be foolish of her to do it. Of
course, she will now begin to enjoy the world a little. She has had few
enough enjoyments, hitherto--we need not grudge them to her now."

But one would have thought that he himself, grudged them to her
considerably.

"What do you mean to do, Lizzie?" said Kitty, dolefully, "shall you take
a house in town? or will you go and live in Scotland--all that long,
long way from us? And shall you"--lifting her face rather
wistfully--"shall you keep any horses and dogs?"

Eliz