ell, a promising boy; that you have
brought him up to do honour to any title or any position."

He could not help saying this, and partly in the testimony to her,
partly for love of the boy, John Tatham's voice faltered a little and
the water came into his eyes.

"Ah, John! you say that!" she cried, as if it had been an admission
forced from him against his will.

"What could I say otherwise? Elinor, because I don't approve of all your
proceedings, because I don't think you have been wise in one respect, is
that to say that I do not understand and know _you?_ I am not such a
fool or a formalist as you give me credit for being. You have made him
all that the fondest and proudest could desire. You have done far
better for him, I do not doubt for a moment, than---- But, my dear
cousin, my dear girl, my poor Nellie----"

"Yes, John?"

He paused a moment, and then he said, "Right is right, and justice is
justice at the end of all."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

When Elinor received the official document which had so extraordinary an
effect upon her life, and overturned in a moment all the fabric of
domestic quiet and security which she had been building up for years, it
was outside the tranquil walls of the house at Lakeside, in the garden
which lay between it and the high-road, opening upon that not very
much-frequented road by a pair of somewhat imposing gates, which gave
the little establishment an air of more pretension than it really
possessed. Some fine trees shrouded the little avenue, and Elinor was
standing under one of them, stooping over a little nest of primroses at
its roots, from which the yellow buds were peeping forth, when she heard
behind her the sound of a vehicle at the gates, and the quick leap to
the ground of someone who opened them. Then there was a pause; the
carriage, whatever it was, did not come farther, and presently she
herself, a little curious, turned round to see a man approaching her,
whom she did not know. A dog-cart driven by another, whose face she
recognized, waited in the road while the stranger came forward. "You are
Mrs. Compton, ma'am?" he said. A swift thrill of alarm, she could
scarcely tell why, ran over Elinor from head to foot. She had been
settled for nearly eighteen years at Lakeside. What could happen to
frighten her now? but it tingled to her very fingers' ends. And then he
said something to her which she scarcely understood, but which sent that
tingle to her very heart