have done what I
conceive to be a duty. I can still change it if I find that you do
not deserve it. As for Isabel, she deserves everything that can be
done for her. Isabel has never given me the slightest cause for
displeasure. I doubt whether there is a better creature in the
world living than Isabel. She deserves everything. But as you are
the male heir, I think it right that you should follow me in the
property--unless you show yourself to be unworthy."

This was certainly a greeting hard to be endured,--a speech very
difficult to answer. Nevertheless it was satisfactory, if only the
old Squire would not again change his mind. The young man had thought
much about it, and had come to the resolution that the best way to
insure the good things promised him would be to induce Isabel to be
his wife.

"I'm sure she is all that you say, Uncle Indefer," he replied.

Uncle Indefer grunted, and told him that if he wanted any supper, he
had better go and get it.

CHAPTER III

Cousin Henry

Cousin Henry found his position to be difficult and precarious. That
suggestion of his uncle's,--or rather assertion,--that he could still
change his mind was disagreeable. No doubt he could do so, and, as
Cousin Henry thought, would be the very man to do it, if angered,
thwarted, or even annoyed. He knew that more than one will had
already been made and set aside. Cousin Henry had turned the whole
matter very much in his mind since he had become cognizant of his
uncle's character. However imprudent he might have been in his
earlier days, he was now quite alive to the importance of being
Squire of Llanfeare. There was nothing that he was not ready to do to
please and conciliate his uncle. Llanfeare without Isabel as a burden
would no doubt be preferable, but he was quite ready to marry Isabel
to-morrow, if Isabel would only accept him. The game he had to play
was for Llanfeare. It was to be Llanfeare or nothing. The position
offered to him was to come, not from love, but from a sense of duty
on the part of the old man. If he could keep the old man firm to that
idea, Llanfeare would be his own; but should he be excluded from
that inheritance, there would be no lesser prize by which he might
reconcile himself to the loss. His uncle would not leave him anything
from love. All this he understood thoroughly, and was therefore not
unnaturally nervous as to his own conduct at the present crisis.

It was only too manifest to him tha