hout
betraying anxiety, he limped down stairs, and called for his horse. Lady
Belamour's letters were wont to be calls for money, not easily answered,
and were never welcome sights, and this hung heavy in the laced pocket
of his coat.

Palmer met him at the back gate, and took his horse, but judged it
advisable to put no questions about the news, while his master made
his way in by the kitchen entrance of the rambling old manor house,
and entered a stone-paved low room, a sort of office or study, where he
received, and paid, money for my Lady, and smoked his pipe. Here he sat
down in his wooden armchair, spread forth his legs, and took out the
letter, opening it with careful avoidance of defacing the large red
seal, covered with many quarterings, and the Delavie escutcheon of
pretence reigning over all.

It opened, as he expected, with replies to some matters about leases and
repairs; and then followed:--

"I am informed that you have a large Family, and Daughters growing up
whom it is desirable to put in the way of making a good Match, or else
an honourable Livelihood; I am therefore willing, for the Sake of our
Family Connection, to charge myself with your youngest Girl, whose Name
I understand to be Aurelia. I will cause her to be trained in useful
Works in my Household, expecting her, in Return, to assist in the Care
and Instruction of my young Children; and if she please me and prove
herself worthy and attentive, I will bestow her Marriage upon some
suitable Person. This is the more proper and convenient for you, because
your Age and Health are such that I may not long be able to retain you
in the Charge of my Estate--in which indeed you are continued only
out of Consideration of an extremely distant Relationship, although a
younger and more active Man, bred to the Profession, would serve me far
more profitably."

When Betty came into the room a few minutes later to pull off her
father's boots she found him sitting like one transfixed. He held out
the letter, saying, "Read that, child."

Betty stood by the window and read, only giving one start, and muttering
between her teeth, "Insolent woman!" but not speaking the words aloud,
for she knew her father would treat them as treason. He always had a
certain tender deference for his cousin Urania, mixed with something
akin to compunction, as if his loyalty to his betrothed had been
disloyalty to his family. Thus, he exceeded the rest of his sex in
blindness to t