ess about his mouth which
betokened roughness as well as strength. Had it been otherwise with
her than it was, she might, she thought, have found it easy enough to
love this young earl. As it was, there was nothing for her to do but
to wait and answer him as best she might.

"Lady Anna," he said.

"My lord!"

"Will it not be well that we should be friends?"

"Oh,--friends;--yes, my lord."

"I will tell you all and everything;--that is, about myself. I was
brought up to believe that you and your mother were just--impostors."

"My lord, we are not impostors."

"No;--I believe it. I am sure you are not. Mistakes have been made,
but it has not been of my doing. As a boy, what could I believe but
what I was told? I know now that you are and always have been as you
have called yourself. If nothing else comes of it, I will at any rate
say so much. The estate which your father left is no doubt yours. If
I could hinder it, there should be no more law."

"Thank you, my lord."

"Your mother says that she has suffered much. I am sure she has
suffered. I trust that all that is over now. I have come here to-day
more to say that on my own behalf than anything else." A shadow of a
shade of disappointment, the slightest semblance of a cloud, passed
across her heart as she heard this. But it was well. She could not
have married him, even if he had wished it, and now, as it seemed,
that difficulty was over. Her mother and those lawyers had been
mistaken, and it was well that he should tell her so at once.

"It is very good of you, my lord."

"I would not have you think of me that I could come to you hoping
that you would promise me your love before I had shown you whether I
had loved you or not."

"No, my lord." She hardly understood him now,--whether he intended to
propose himself as a suitor for her hand or not.

"You, Lady Anna, are your father's heir. I am your cousin, Earl
Lovel, as poor a peer as there is in England. They tell me that we
should marry because you are rich and I am an earl."

"So they tell me;--but that will not make it right."

"I would not have it so, even if I dared to think that you would
agree to it."

"Oh, no, my lord; nor would I."

"But if you could learn to love me--"

"No, my lord;--no."

"Do not answer me yet, my cousin. If I swore that I loved you,--loved
you so soon after seeing you,--and loved you, too, knowing you to be
so wealthy an heiress--"

"Ah, do not talk of that."