y the mortgagees, and leave himself
a pittance not much more than the wages of a gamekeeper. If his aunt,
Lady Randolph, had not been so good to him it was uncertain whether he
could have existed at all, and when the heiress, whom an eccentric will
had consigned to her charge, fell in his way, all her friends concluded
as a matter of certainty that Sir Tom would jump at this extraordinary
windfall, this gift of a too kind Providence, which sometimes will care
for a prodigal in a way which he is quite unworthy of, while leaving the
righteous man to struggle on unaided. But for some time it appeared as
if society for once was out in its reckoning. Sir Tom did not pounce
upon the heiress. He was a person of very independent mind, and there
were some who thought he was happier in his untrammelled poverty, doing
what he pleased, than he ever had been as a great proprietor. Even when
it became apparent to the wise and far-seeing that little Miss Trevor
was only waiting till his handkerchief was thrown at her to become the
happiest of women, still he did nothing. He exasperated his kind aunt,
he made all his friends indignant, and what was more, he exposed the
young heiress hourly to many attempts on the part of the inferior class,
from which as a matter of fact she herself sprang; and it was not until
she was driven nearly desperate by those attempts that Sir Tom suddenly
appeared upon the scene, and moved, it was thought, more by a
half-fatherly kindness and sympathy for her, than either by love or
desire of wealth, took her to himself, and made her his wife, to the
great and grateful satisfaction of the girl herself, whose strange
upbringing and brief introduction into a higher sphere had spoiled her
for that homely country-town existence in which every woman flattered
and every man made love to her.

Whether Lucy Trevor was in love with him was as uncertain as whether he
was in love with her. So far as any one knew neither one nor the other
had asked themselves this question. She had, as it were, thrown herself
into his arms in sudden delight and relief of mind when he appeared and
saved her from her suitors; while he had received her tenderly when she
did this, out of kindness and pleasure in her genuine, half-childish
appreciation of him. There were, of course, people who said that Lucy
had been violently in love with Sir Tom, and that he had made up his
mind to marry her money from the first moment he saw her; but neithe