f them. Now draw that chair
up to the window--it is not comfortable, but it is the best of them--and
let us talk. Now, in the first place you don't know how sorry, how
dreadfully sorry I have been about what has happened at home. I was
shocked, indeed, at the news of the sudden death of your dear father. He
was always so kind when he came to see us, and I liked him so much, I
felt for you deeply. It must have been an awful shock for you. I heard
it a few days after I got to Dresden. Then came the other news about
that terrible failure and its consequences. It seemed too shocking
altogether that you should have lost the dear old place, but I do think
I was most shocked of all when I heard that my father had bought it.
Somehow it did not seem to be right. Of course it must have been, but it
did not seem so to me. Did it to you, Cuthbert?" and she looked at him
wistfully.

"I have no doubt it was all right," he said, "and as it was to be sold,
I think I preferred it should be to your father rather than anybody
else. I believe I rather liked the thought that as it was not to be my
home it would be yours."

She shook her head.

"It does not seem to me to be natural at all, and I was miserable all
the time I was there the other day."

"Your father respected my wishes in all respects, Mary. I believe he
kept on all the old servants who chose to stay. He promised me that he
would not sell my father's hunters, and that no one should ride them,
but that they should be pensioners as long as they lived; and the same
with the dogs, and that at any time, if I moved into quarters where I
could keep a dog or two, he would send up my two favorites to me."

"Yes, they are all there. I went out and gave cakes to the dogs and
sugar to the horses every day, and talked to them, and I think regularly
had a cry over them. It was very foolish, but I could not help it. It
did all seem so wrong and so pitiful. I could not learn much about you
from father. He said that you had only written once to him on business
since things were finally settled; but that you had mentioned that you
were going to Paris, and he said, too--" and she hesitated for a moment,
"that although you had lost Fairclose and all the property, you had
enough to live upon in a way--a very poor way--but still enough for
that."

"Not such a very poor way," he said. "There is no secret about it. I had
five thousand pounds that had been settled on my mother, and fortunately