rfeited it. I think it is more respectable. I only wish mamma had
come in for it, because she is the right person, and papa is a good deal
straitened. That really was a shame! Why did not she let them have it?'

'Arthur thinks it was for fear we should be helped.'

'No doubt,' said Theodora. 'Well. I wish--! It is a horrid thing to find
people worse after they are dead than one thought them. There! I have
had it out. I could not have borne to keep silence. Now, let us put the
disgusting money matter out of our heads for good and all. I did not
think you would have been distressed at such a thing, Violet.'

'I don't want it,' said Violet, amid her tears. 'It is Arthur's
disappointment, and the knowing I brought it on him.'

'Nonsense!' cried Theodora. 'If I had Arthur here, I would scold him
well; and as to you, he may thank you for everything good belonging
to him. Ten million fortunes would not be worth the tip of your little
finger to him, and you know he thinks so. Without you, and with this
money, he would be undone. Now, don't be silly! You have got your
spirits tired out, and sleep will make you a sensible woman.'

Violet was always the better for an affectionate scolding, and went
to bed, trusting that Arthur's disappointment might wear off with the
night. But his aunt's inheritance had been too much the hope of
his life, for him to be without a strong sense of injury, and his
embarrassments made the loss a most serious matter. He applied to his
father for an increase of allowance, but he could not have chosen a
worse time; Lord Martindale had just advanced money for the purchase of
his company, and could so ill afford to supply him as before, that but
for the sake of his family, he would have withdrawn part of his actual
income. So, all he obtained was a lecture on extravagance and neglect
of his wife and children; and thus rendered still more sullen, he became
impatient to escape from these grave looks and reproofs, and to return
to town before the disclosure of Mr. Gardner's courtship. He made it his
pretext that Violet was unwell and overworked in the general service;
and she was, in truth, looking very ill and harassed; but he was far
more the cause than were her exertions, and it was a great mortification
to be removed from his parents and sister when, for the first time, she
found herself useful to them, and for such an ungracious reason too,
just when they were so much drawn together by the dangers the