she would have to
give up the Willows and the Osierfield, and all the wealth and position
that these had brought her; and this was a bitter draught to drink.
Elisabeth felt no doubt in her own mind that Cecil was indeed George
Farringdon's son; she had guessed it when first he told her the story of
his birth, and subsequent conversations with him had only served to
confirm her in the belief; and it was this conviction which had
influenced her to some extent in her decision to accept him. But now
everything was changed. Cecil would rule at the Osierfield and Quenelda
at the Willows instead of herself, and those dearly loved places would
know her no more.

At this thought Elisabeth broke down. How she loved every stone of the
Black Country, and how closely all her childish fancies and girlish
dreams were bound up in it! Now the cloud of smoke would hang over
Sedgehill, and she would not be there to interpret its message; and the
sun would set beyond the distant mountains, and she would no longer
catch glimpses of the country over the hills. Even the rustic seat,
where she and Christopher had sat so often, would be hers no longer; and
he and she would never walk together in the woods as they had so often
walked as children. And as she cried softly to herself, with no one to
comfort her, the memory of Christopher swept over her, and with it all
the old anger against him. He would be glad to see her dethroned at
last, she supposed, as that was what he had striven for all those years
ago; but, perhaps, when he saw a stranger reigning at the Willows and
the Osierfield in her stead, he would be sorry to find the new
government so much less beneficial to the work-people than the old one
had been; for Elisabeth knew Cecil quite well enough to be aware that he
would spend all his money on himself and his own pleasures; and she
could not help indulging in an unholy hope that, whereas she had beaten
Christopher with whips, her successor would beat him with scorpions. In
fact she was almost glad, for the moment, that Farquhar was so unfit for
the position to which he was now called, when she realized how sorely
that unfitness would try Christopher.

"It will serve him right for leaving me and going off after George
Farringdon's son," she said to herself, "to discover how little worth
the finding George Farringdon's son really was! Christopher is so
self-centred, that a thing is never properly brought home to him until
it affects hi