“She is a gem of inestimable price, and most warmly attached to you.  And if this property is to be bought, of course the money will be a great thing.”

“Money is always comfortable.”

“Of course it is, and then there is nothing to be desired.  If I had named the girl that I would have wished you to love, it would been Caroline Penge.”  She need hardly have said this as she had in fact been naming the girl for the last three or four months.  The news was soon spread about the country and the fashionable world; and everybody was pleased,—­except the Trefoil family.

CHAPTER XXI

Arabella’s Success

When Arabella Trefoil got back to Portugal Street after her visit to Rufford, she was ill.  The effort she had made, the unaccustomed labour, and the necessity of holding herself aloft before the man who had rejected her, were together more than her strength could bear, and she was taken up to bed in a fainting condition.  It was not till the next morning that she was able even to open the letter which contained the news of John Morton’s legacy.  When she had read the letter and realized the contents, she took to weeping in a fashion very unlike her usual habits.  She was still in bed, and there she remained for two or three days, during which she had time to think of her past life,—­and to think also a little of the future.  Old Mrs. Green came to her once or twice a day, but she was necessarily left to the nursing of her own maid.  Every evening Mounser Green called and sent up tender enquiries; but in all this there was very little to comfort her.  There she lay with the letter in her hand, thinking that the only man who had endeavoured to be of service to her was he whom she had treated with unexampled perfidy.  Other men had petted her, had amused themselves with her, and then thrown her over, had lied to her and laughed at her, till she had been taught to think that a man was a heartless, cruel, slippery animal, made indeed to be caught occasionally, but in the catching of which infinite skill was wanted, and in which infinite skill might be thrown away.  But this man had been true to her to the last in spite of her treachery!

She knew that she was heartless herself, and that she belonged to a heartless world;—­but she knew also that there was a world of women who were not heartless.  Such women had looked down upon her as from a great height, but she in return had been able to ridicule them.  They had chosen their part, and she had chosen hers,—­and had thought that she might climb to the glory of wealth and rank, while they would have to marry hard-working clergymen and briefless barristers.  She had often been called upon to vindicate to herself the part she had chosen, and had always done so by magnifying in her own mind the sin of the men with whom she had to deal.  At this moment she thought that Lord Rufford had treated her villainously, whereas her