rn to their own proper dwelling-place, and made preparations
accordingly for leaving Carlingford, in which, indeed, they had no
further occupation; for, to be sure, except to the extent of that
respect which a man owes to his aunts, they had no special claim upon
Frank Wentworth, or right to supervise his actions, save on account of
Skelmersdale, which was now fully disposed of and given away. It cannot
be said that Miss Leonora had ever fully recovered from the remarkable
indisposition which her nephew Jack's final address had brought upon
her. The very next morning she fulfilled her pledges as a woman of
honour, and bestowed Skelmersdale positively and finally upon Julia
Trench's curate, who indeed made a creditable enough rector in his way;
but after she had accomplished this act, Miss Leonora relapsed into one
unceasing watch upon her nephew Frank, which was far from dispelling the
tendency to headache which she showed at this period for the first and
only time in her life. She watched him with a certain feeling of
expiation, as she might have resorted to self-flagellation had she lived
a few hundred years before, and perhaps suffered more acute pangs in
that act of discipline than could be inflicted by any physical scourge.
The longer she studied the matter the more thoroughly was Miss Leonora
convinced not only that the Perpetual Curate was bent on doing his duty,
but that he _did_ it with all the force of high faculties, and a mind
much more thoroughly trained, and of finer material than was possessed
by the man whom she had made rector of Skelmersdale. The strong-minded
woman bore quietly, with a kind of defiance, the sharp wounds with
which her self-esteem was pierced by this sight. She followed up her
discovery, and made herself more and more certain of the mistake she had
made, not sparing herself any part of her punishment. As she pursued her
investigations, too, Miss Leonora became increasingly sensible that it
was not his mother's family whom he resembled, as she had once thought,
but that he was out and out a Wentworth, possessed of all the family
features; and this was the man whom by her own act she had disinherited
of his natural share in the patronage of the family, substituting for
her own flesh and blood an individual for whom, to tell the truth, she
had little respect! Perhaps if she had been able to sustain herself with
the thought that it was entirely a question of "principle," the
retrospect might