“A beauty, and a wealthy heiress!  We must have her at home at once, William.  We will fetch her without any delay.”

Lord Ridsdale thought some of the servants might go, that it was hardly necessary for him to make the journey.  His wife laughed at him.

“You do not know the social importance of your ward,” she said.  “Before long Miss Arleigh will be one of the queens of society, heiress of Hanton, and of the large fortune left by her father; we shall have some of the first men in England wooing her.  She may be a duchess if she likes.”  At which intelligence Lord Ridsdale opened his eyes.

He had thought of his ward as of a tiresome responsibility, a child of whom the charge would be very troublesome.  He had taken good care of her money, because he was an honorable man, but he had not thought much of what his wife called her social position.  As a probable duchess he felt a great amount of respect for her.

So Lord and Lady Ridsdale went together to bring their beautiful young ward home.  Miss Carleton was grieved to lose her.

“She has been a docile pupil, and she is a beautiful, lovable girl.  Though I am sorry indeed to part with her, for her own sake I am glad she is going; it is high time she saw something of the world.”

“You have had no trouble with her, I hope?” said Lord Ridsdale.  “At seventeen most young girls have begun to think of love and lovers.”

Miss Carleton prided herself on the fact that in her establishment such matters were entirely avoided.

“There is nothing of the kind,” she replied, earnestly.  “I do not believe that Miss Arleigh has even begun to think of such things.”

“So much the worse when she does begin,” thought Lady Ridsdale.

When the preliminaries had all been discussed, and Miss Arleigh was requested to meet her guardian, Lady Ridsdale could not control her surprise at the sight of the girl’s beauty.

“You could not tell whether she was pretty or not?” she said afterwards to her husband.  “William you must be blind.”

She welcomed the young girl warmly.  She kissed the fresh blooming face that had all a woman’s beauty with the innocence of a child.  She clasped her arms round the slender, girlish figure.

“You must learn to love me,” she said, “to look on me in the place of the mother you have lost.”

And Marion Arleigh for the first time in her life imagined to herself what a mother’s love would be like.

“What a strange idea to keep you so long at school!” said Lady Ridsdale.  “We must do our best to atone for it.”

“I should imagine that my guardian did not know what to do with me,” she replied, with a smile so bright and sweet that Lord Ridsdale at once fell in love with her, as his wife had done before him.

“Where am I going to live?” asked Marion, after they had been talking for some time.

“We are going to Thorpe Castle,” replied Lady Ridsdale, “and I thought you would enjoy being there with us.”