d already
brought him into trouble.

Mr. Huntingdon was thinking about Lord Bertie Gower as he rode away
that spring morning, while Nea waved to him from the balcony; he had
looked up at her and smiled, but as he turned away his thoughts were
very busy. Yes, Lord Bertie was a fool, he knew that--perhaps he would
not own as much to any one else, certainly not if Lord Bertie became
his son-in-law--but he was well-bred and had plenty of good nature,
and--Well, young men were all alike, they would have their fling, and
he was hardly the man to cast a stone at them. Then he was a
good-looking fellow, and girls liked him; and if Nea laughed at him,
and said that he was stupid, he could soon convince her that there was
no need for her husband to be clever--she was clever enough for both;
he would like to see the man, with the exception of himself, who could
bend Nea's will. The girl took after him in that; she had not
inherited her mother's soft yielding nature--poor Susan, who had loved
him so well.

Lord Bertie needed a strong hand; as his son-in-law, Mr. Huntingdon
thought that he could keep him in order. The boy was certainly in love
with Nea. He must come to an understanding with him. True, he was only
a second son; but his brother, Lord Leveson, was still a bachelor, and
rather shaky in his health. The family were not as a rule long-lived;
they were constitutionally and morally weak; and the old earl had
already had a touch of paralysis. Yes, Mr. Huntingdon thought it would
do; and there was Groombridge Hall for sale, he thought he would buy
that; it should be his wedding-gift--part of the rich dowry that she
would bring to her husband.

Mr. Huntingdon planned it all as he rode down to the city that
morning, and it never entered his mind what Nea would say to his
choice. His child belonged to him. She was part of himself. Hitherto
his will had been hers. True, he had denied her nothing; he had never
demanded even a trifling sacrifice from her; there was no fear that
she would cross his will if he told her seriously that he had set his
heart on this marriage; and he felt no pity for the motherless young
creature, who in her beauty and innocence appealed so strongly to his
protection. In his strange nature love was only another form of pride;
his egotism made him incapable of unselfish tenderness.

Nea little knew of the thoughts that filled her father's mind as she
watched him fondly until both horse and rider had di