into whose hands they will
fall. Your heart may be free, Clara; you have followed the clear path
of duty; but it is a painful thought for me, that to strive to amend
these festering evils, caused very likely by my grandfather's
speculations, might have been my appointed task. I should not have had
far to seek for occupation. When I was talking to the Curate
yesterday, my heart smote me to think what I might have done to help
him.'

'It would all have been over now.'

'It ought not. Nay, perhaps, my presence might have left my uncle free
to attend to his own concerns.'

'I really believe you are going to regret the place!'

'After all, Clara, I was a Dynevor before my uncle came home. It might
have been my birthright. But, as Isabel says, what we are now is far
more likely to be safe for the children. I was bad enough as I was,
but what should I have been as a pampered heir! Let it go.'

'Yes, let it go,' said Clara; 'it has been little but pain to me. We
shall teach my poor uncle that home love is better than old family
estates. I almost wish he may recover nothing in Peru, that he may
learn that you receive him for his own sake.'

'That is more than I can wish,' said James. 'A hundred or two a-year
would come in handily. Besides, I am afraid that Mary Ponsonby may be
suffering in this crash.'

'She seems to have taken care of herself,' said Clara. 'She does not
write to me, and I am almost ready to believe her father at last. I
could not have thought it of her!'

'Isabel has always said it was the best thing that could happen to
Louis.'

'Isabel never had any notion of Louis. I don't mean any offence, but
if she had known what he was made of, she would never have had you.'

'Thank you, Clara! I always thought it an odd predilection, but no one
can now esteem Fitzjocelyn more highly than ahe does.'

'Very likely; but if she thinks Louis can stand Mary's deserting him--'

'It will be great pain, no doubt; but once over, he will be free.'

'It never will be over.'

'That is young-ladyism.'

'I never was a young lady, and I know what I mean. Mary may not be all
he thinks her, and she may be dull enough to let her affection wear
out; but I do not believe he will ever look at any one again, as he did
after Mary on your wedding-day.'

'So you forbid him to be ever happy again!'

'Not at all, only in that one way. There are many others of being
happy.'

'That one way meaning marriage.