edy."
From which it may be inferred that she had also taken considerable
trouble in the composition of her letter. Other communications
between Loughlinter and Portman Square there were none, but there
came through the lawyers a statement of Mr. Kennedy's will, as far as
the interests of Lady Laura were concerned. This reached Mr. Forster
first, and he brought it personally to Portman Square. He asked for
Lady Laura, and saw her alone. "He has bequeathed to you the use of
Loughlinter for your life, Lady Laura."

"To me!"

"Yes, Lady Laura. The will is dated in the first year of his
marriage, and has not been altered since."

"What can I do with Loughlinter? I will give it back to them." Then
Mr. Forster explained that the legacy referred not only to the house
and immediate grounds,--but to the whole estate known as the domain
of Loughlinter. There could be no reason why she should give it up,
but very many why she should not do so. Circumstanced as Mr. Kennedy
had been, with no one nearer to him than a first cousin, with a
property purchased with money saved by his father,--a property to
which no cousin could by inheritance have any claim,--he could not
have done better with it than to leave it to his widow in fault of
any issue of his own. Then the lawyer explained that were she to give
it up, the world would of course say that she had done so from a
feeling of her own unworthiness. "Why should I feel myself to be
unworthy?" she asked. The lawyer smiled, and told her that of course
she would retain Loughlinter.

Then, at her request, he was taken to the Earl's room and there
repeated the good news. Lady Laura preferred not to hear her father's
first exultations. But while this was being done she also exulted.
Might it not still be possible that there should be before her a
happy evening to her days; and that she might stand once more beside
the falls of Linter, contented, hopeful, nay, almost glorious, with
her hand in his to whom she had once refused her own on that very
spot?

CHAPTER LIII

None But the Brave Deserve the Fair

Though Mr. Robert Kennedy was lying dead at Loughlinter, and though
Phineas Finn, a member of Parliament, was in prison, accused of
murdering another member of Parliament, still the world went on with
its old ways, down in the neighbourhood of Harrington Hall and Spoon
Hall as at other places. The hunting with the Brake hounds was now
over for the season,--had indeed been bro