ed to think
no more of it until the time came for getting rid of my legacy. I kissed
poor Sir Gervase's little keepsake. While I was still looking at it,
the good children came in, of their own accord, to ask how I was. I was
obliged to draw down the blind in my room, or they would have seen the
tears in my eyes. For the first time since my mother's death, I felt the
heartache. Perhaps the children made me think of the happier time when I
was a child myself.

VII.

THE will had been proved, and I was informed that the document was
in course of preparation when Mrs. Fosdyke returned from her visit to
Scotland.

She thought me looking pale and worn.

"The time seems to me to have come," she said, "when I had better make
you and Mr. Sax understand each other. Have you been thinking penitently
of your own bad behavior?"

I felt myself blushing. I _had_ been thinking of my conduct to Mr.
Sax--and I was heartily ashamed of it, too.

Mrs. Fosdyke went on, half in jest, half in earnest. "Consult your own
sense of propriety!" she said. "Was the poor man to blame for not being
rude enough to say No, when a lady asked him to turn over her music?
Could _he_ help it, if the same lady persisted in flirting with him? He
ran away from her the next morning. Did you deserve to be told why he
left us? Certainly not--after the vixenish manner in which you handed
the bedroom candle to Miss Melbury. You foolish girl! Do you think I
couldn't see that you were in love with him? Thank Heaven, he's too poor
to marry you, and take you away from my children, for some time to come.
There will be a long marriage engagement, even if he is magnanimous
enough to forgive you. Shall I ask Miss Melbury to come back with him?"

She took pity on me at last, and sat down to write to Mr. Sax. His
reply, dated from a country house some twenty miles distant, announced
that he would be at Carsham Hall in three days' time.

On that third day the legal paper that I was to sign arrived by post. It
was Sunday morning; I was alone in the schoolroom.

In writing to me, the lawyer had only alluded to "a surviving relative
of Sir Gervase, nearly akin to him by blood." The document was more
explicit. It described the relative as being a nephew of Sir Gervase,
the son of his sister. The name followed.

It was Sextus Cyril Sax.

I have tried on three different sheets of paper to describe the effect
which this discovery produced on me--and I have torn them up