hold up her head. And for many a long year much of this
feeling clung to her;--clung to her much more strongly than to her
father. But strength was hers to perceive, even before she had
reached her home, that it was her duty to repress both the feeling
of shame and the sorrow, as far as they were capable of repression.
Her brother had been weak, and in his weakness had sought a coward's
escape from the ills of the world around him. She must not also be a
coward! Bad as life might be to her henceforth, she must endure it
with such fortitude as she could muster. So resolving she returned to
her father, and was able to listen to his railings with a fortitude
that was essentially serviceable both to him and to herself.

"Both of you! Both of you!" the unhappy father had said in his woe.
"The wretched boy has destroyed you as much as himself!" "No, sir,"
she had answered, with a forbearance in her misery, which, terrible
as was the effort, she forced herself to accomplish for his sake. "It
is not so. No thought of that need add to your grief. My poor brother
has not hurt me;--not in the way you mean." "He has ruined us all,"
said the father; "root and branch, man and woman, old and young,
house and land. He has brought the family to an end;--ah me, to such
an end!" After that the name of him who had taken himself from among
them was not mentioned between the father and daughter, and Clara
settled herself to the duties of her new life, striving to live as
though there was no great sorrow around her--as though no cloud-storm
had burst over her head.

The family lawyer, who lived at Taunton, had communicated the fact of
Charles's death to Mr. Belton, and Belton had acknowledged the letter
with the ordinary expressions of regret. The lawyer had alluded to
the entail, saying that it was improbable that Mr. Amedroz would have
another son. To this Belton had replied that for his cousin Clara's
sake he hoped that the squire's life might be long spared. The lawyer
smiled as he read the wish, thinking to himself that luckily no wish
on the part of Will Belton could influence his old client either for
good or evil. What man, let alone what lawyer, will ever believe
in the sincerity of such a wish as that expressed by the heir to a
property? And yet where is the man who will not declare to himself
that such, under such circumstances, would be his own wish?

Clara Amedroz at this time was not a very young lady. She had already
passed