Here Emily spoke again.  “Well, Val, nobody ever came into an estate more naturally and rightly than you do, for, however well you may have behaved about it, and nobody could have behaved better, you must have felt that as the old lady chose to leave all to one son, that should not have been the youngest.  I hope you will be happy; and I know you will make a kind, good landlord.  It seems quite providential that you should have spent so much time in learning all about land and farming.  I have always felt that all which was best and nicest in you would come out, if you could have prosperity, and we now see that it was intended for you.”

Cordial, delightful words to Valentine; they almost made him forget this letter that she had never heard of.

“Oh, if you please, ma’am,” exclaimed a female servant, bursting into the room, “Mr. Brandon’s love to you.  He has sent the pony-carriage, and he wants you to come back in it directly.”

Something in the instant attention paid to this message, and the alacrity with which Emily ran up-stairs, as if perfectly ready, and expectant of it, showed Valentine that it did not concern his inheritance, but also what and whom it probably did concern, and he sauntered into the little hall to wait for Emily, put her into the carriage and fold the rug round her, while he observed without much surprise that she had for the moment quite forgotten his special affairs, and was anxious and rather urgent to be off.

Then he drove into Wigfield, considering in his own mind that if John did not know anything concerning the command in this strange letter, he and he only was the person who ought to be told and consulted about it.

It rained now, and when he entered the bank and paused to take off his wet coat, he saw on every face as it was lifted up that his news was known, and his heart beat so fast as he knocked at John’s door that he had hardly strength to obey the hearty “Come in.”

Two minutes would decide what John knew, and whether he also had a message to give him from the dead.  John was standing with his back to the fire, grave and lost in thought.  Valentine came in, and sat down on one side of the grate, putting his feet on the fender to warm them.  When he had done this, he longed to change his attitude, for John neither moved nor spoke, and he could not see his face.  His own agitation made him feel that he was watched, and that he could not seem ill at ease, and must not be the first to move; but at last when the silence and immobility of John became intolerable to him, he suddenly pushed back his chair, and looked up.  John then turned his head slightly, and their eyes met.

“You know it,” said Valentine.

“Yes,” John answered gravely, “of course.”

“Oh! what next, what next?” thought Valentine, and he spent two or three minutes in such a tumult of keen expectation and eager excitement, that he could hear every beat of his heart quite plainly, and then—­