without reference to him.  She alone knew how utterly destitute she would be when he should die.  He, in the first days of his agony, had sobbed forth his remorse as to her ruin; but, even when doing so, he had comforted himself with the remembrance of Miss Winterfield’s money and Mrs Winterfield’s affection for his daughter.  And the aunt, when she had declared her purpose to Clara, had told herself that the provision made for Clara by her father was sufficient.  To neither of them had Clara told her own position.  She could not inform her aunt that her father had given up to the poor reprobate who had destroyed himself all that had been intended for her.  Had she done so she would have been asking her aunt for charity.  Nor would she bring herself to add to her father’s misery, by destroying the hopes which still supported him.  She never spoke of her own position in regard to money, but she knew that it had become her duty to live a wary, watchful life, taking much upon herself in their impoverished household, and holding her own opinion against her father’s when her doing so became expedient.  So she finished the letter in silence, and did not speak at the moment when the movement of her eyes declared that she had completed the task.

‘Well?’ said he.

‘I do not think my cousin means badly.’

’You don’t!  I do, then.  I think he means very badly.  What business has he to write to me, talking of his position?’

’I can’t see anything amiss in his doing so, papa.  I think he wishes to be friendly.  The property will be his some day, and I don’t see why that should not be mentioned, when there is occasion.’

’Upon my word, Clara, you surprise me.  But women never understood delicacy in regard to money.  They have so little to do with it, and think so little about it, that they have no occasion for such delicacy.’

Clara could not help the thought that to her mind the subject was present with sufficient frequency to make delicacy very desirable, if only it were practicable.  But of this she said nothing.  ’And what answer will you send to him, papa?’ she asked.

‘None at all.  Why should I trouble myself to write to him?’

‘I will take the trouble off your hands.’

‘And what will you say to him?’

‘I will ask him to come here, as he proposes.’

‘Clara!’

’Why not, papa?  He is the heir to the property, and why should he not be permitted to see it?  There are many things in which his co-operation with you might be a comfort to you.  I can’t tell you whether the tenants and people are treating you well, but he can do so; and, moreover, I think he means to be kind.  I do not see why we should quarrel with our cousin because he is the heir to your property.  It is not through any doing of his own that he is so.’