,--beyond all trouble."

"Who has gone away?"

"Brotherton is--dead, mamma. This is a telegram from George." The old
woman looked bewildered, as though she did not as yet quite comprehend
what had been said to her. "You know," continued Lady Sarah, "that he
was so ill that we all expected this."

"Expected what?"

"That my brother could not live."

"Where is George? What has George done? If George had gone to him----.
Oh me! Dead! He is not dead! And what has become of the child?"

"You should think of Mary, mamma."

"My dear, of course I think of you. I am thinking of nothing else. I
should say it would be Friday. Sarah,--you don't mean to say that
Brotherton is--dead?" Lady Sarah merely pressed her mother's hand and
looked into the old lady's face. "Why did not they let me go to him?
And is Popenjoy dead also?"

"Dear mamma, don't you remember?" said Lady Susanna.

"Yes; I remember. George was determined it should be so. Ah me!--ah me!
Why should I have lived to hear this!" After that it was in vain that
they told her of Mary and of the baby that was about to be born. She
wept herself into hysterics,--was taken away and put to bed; and then
soon wept herself asleep.

Mary during all this had said not a word. She had felt that the moment
of her exaltation,--the moment in which she had become the mistress of
the house and of everything around it,--was not a time in which she
could dare even to speak to the bereaved mother. But when the two
younger sisters had gone away with the Marchioness, she asked after her
husband. Then Lady Sarah showed her the telegram in which Lord George,
after communicating the death of his brother, had simply said that he
should himself return home as quickly as possible. "It has come very
quick," said Lady Sarah.

"What has come!"

"Your position, Mary. I hope,--I hope you will bear it well."

"I hope so," said Mary, almost sullenly. But she was awestruck, and not
sullen.

"It will all be yours now,--the rank, the wealth, the position, the
power of spending money, and tribes of friends anxious to share your
prosperity. Hitherto you have only seen the gloom of this place, which
to you has of course been dull. Now it will be lighted up, and you can
make it gay enough."

"This is not a time to think of gaiety," said Mary.

"Poor Brotherton was nothing to you. I do not think you ever saw him."

"Never."

"He was nothing to you. You cannot mourn."

"I do mourn. I wish he