this, the
spoiled darling of society, the charming spendthrift of Nature's
choicest treasures of beauty and youth, suddenly flashing into the dim
life of three weary old men--suddenly dropped into the place, of all
others, which is least fit for her--suddenly shut out from the world
in the lonely quiet of the loneliest home in England. Realize, if it
be possible, all that is most whimsical and most anomalous in such a
situation as this, and the startling confession contained in the opening
sentence of these pages will no longer excite the faintest emotion
of surprise. Who can wonder now, when our bright young goddess really
descended on us, that I and my brothers were all three at our wits' end
what to do with her!

CHAPTER II. OUR DILEMMA.

WHO is the young lady? And how did she find her way into The Glen Tower?

Her name (in relation to which I shall have something more to say a
little further on) is Jessie Yelverton. She is an orphan and an only
child. Her mother died while she was an infant; her father was my dear
and valued friend, Major Yelverton. He lived long enough to celebrate
his darling's seventh birthday. When he died he intrusted his authority
over her and his responsibility toward her to his brother and to me.

When I was summoned to the reading of the major's will, I knew perfectly
well that I should hear myself appointed guardian and executor with
his brother; and I had been also made acquainted with my lost friend's
wishes as to his daughter's education, and with his intentions as to the
disposal of all his property in her favor. My own idea, therefore, was,
that the reading of the will would inform me of nothing which I had
not known in the testator's lifetime. When the day came for hearing
it, however, I found that I had been over hasty in arriving at this
conclusion. Toward the end of the document there was a clause inserted
which took me entirely by surprise.

After providing for the education of Miss Yelverton under the direction
of her guardians, and for her residence, under ordinary circumstances,
with the major's sister, Lady Westwick, the clause concluded by saddling
the child's future inheritance with this curious condition:

From the period of her leaving school to the period of her reaching the
age of twenty-one years, Miss Yelverton was to pass not less than six
consecutive weeks out of every year under the roof of one of her two
guardians. During the lives of both of them, it w