ad slowly.

"The Earl," he said, "was a very proud man--a very proud man."

"You may call it pride," she exclaimed. "I call it rank and brutal
selfishness! They had no right to force such a sacrifice upon him. He
would have been content, I am sure, to have lived quietly in England--to
have kept out of their way, to have conformed to their wishes in any
reasonable manner. But to rob him of home and friends and family and
name--well, may God call them to account for it, and judge them as they
judged him!"

"I was against it," he said sadly, "always."

"So Mr. Davenant told me," she said. "I can't quite forgive you, Mr.
Cuthbert, for letting me grow up and be so shamefully imposed upon, but
of course I don't blame you as I do the others. I am only thankful
that I have made myself independent of my relations. I think, after the
letters which I wrote to them last night, they will be quite content to
let me remain where they put my father--outside their lives."

"I had heard," Mr. Cuthbert said hesitatingly, "that you were following
some occupation. Something literary, is it not?"

"I am a journalist," Ernestine answered promptly, "and I'm proud to say
that I am earning my own living."

He looked at her with a fine and wonderful curiosity. In his way he was
quite as much one of the old school as the Earl of Eastchester, and
the idea of a lady--a Wendermott, too--calling herself a journalist
and proud of making a few hundreds a year was amazing enough to him. He
scarcely knew how to answer her.

"Yes, yes," he said, "you have some of your father's spirit, some of his
pluck too. And that reminds me--we wrote to you to call."

"Yes."

"Mr. Davenant has told you that your father was engaged in some
enterprise with this wonderful Mr. Scarlett Trent, when he died."

"Yes! He told me that!"

"Well, I have had a visit just recently from that gentleman. It seems
that your father when he was dying spoke of his daughter in England, and
Mr. Trent is very anxious now to find you out, and speaks of a large sum
of money which he wishes to invest in your name."

"He has been a long time thinking about it," Ernestine remarked.

"He explained that," Mr. Cuthbert continued, "in this way. Your father
gave him our address when he was dying, but the envelope on which it
was written got mislaid, and he only came across it a day or two ago. He
came to see me at once, and he seems prepared to act very handsomely. He
pressed very hard