not go to a warmer climate?"

"I don't know--that is his affair. But it is a serious matter for me.
If he dies under present circumstances, all the Isleworth estates,
which are mine by right, must pass away from the family forever."

"Why must they pass away?"

"Because your grandfather, with a refined ingenuity, made a provision
in his will that George was not to leave them back to me, as he was
telling me this afternoon he is anxious to do. If he were to die now
with a will in my favour, or without any will at all, they would all
go to some far away cousins in Scotland."

"He died of heart-disease, did he not?--my grandfather, I mean?"

Philip's face grew black as night, and he shot a quick glance of
suspicion at his daughter.

"I was saying," he went on, without answering her question, "that
George may sell the land or settle it, but must not leave it to me or
you, nor can I take under an intestacy."

Angela did not understand these legal intricacies, and knew about as
much about the law of intestacy as she did of Egyptian inscriptions.

"Well," she said, consolingly, "I am very sorry, but it can't be
helped, can it?"

"The girl is a born fool," muttered Philip beneath his breath, and
passed on.

A week or so afterwards, just when the primroses and Lent-lilies were
at the meridian of their beauty and all the air was full of song,
Angela heard more about her cousin George. Mr. Fraser was one day sent
for to Isleworth; Lady Bellamy brought him the message, saying that
George was in such a state of health that he wished to see a
clergyman.

"I never saw a worse case," he said to Angela on his return. "He does
not leave the house, but lies in a darkened room coughing and spitting
blood. He is, I should say, going off fast; but he refuses to see a
doctor. His frame of mind, however, is most Christian, and he seems to
have reconciled himself to the prospect of a speedy release."

"Poor man!" said Angela sympathetically; "he sent and asked to see
you, did he not?"

"Well--yes; but when I got there he talked more about the things of
this world than of the next. He is greatly distressed about your
father. I daresay you have heard how your cousin George supplanted
your father in the succession to the Isleworth estates. Your
grandfather disinherited him, you know, because of his marriage with
your mother. Now that he is dying, he sees the injustice of this, but
is prevented by the terms of your grandfather's wi