ce of her Dynevor
nature. 'I'll go straight home to Northwold to-morrow
morning--to-night if I could. Yes, I will! I never came here for
this!'

'And what is to become of my poor Aunt Kitty?'

'She has her Oliver! She would not have me put Jem out of his
birthright.'

'James will not be put into it.'

She wrenched away her hand, and looked at him with all her brother's
fierceness. 'And you!' she cried, 'why could not you speak up like a
man, and tell them that I thank none of them, and will have nothing to
say to any of them; and that if this is to belong to any one, it must
be to my noble, my glorious, generous brother; and, if he hasn't it, it
may go to the Queen, for what I care! I'll never have one stone of it.
Why could you not say so, instead of all that humbug'!'

'I thought the family had afforded quite spectacles enough for one
day,' said Louis; 'and besides, I had some pity upon your grandmother,
and on your uncle too.'

'Jem told me grandmamma claimed my first duty; but he never knew of
this wicked plan.'

'Yes, he did.'

'Knew that I was to supplant him!'

'Yes; we all knew it was a threat of your uncle; but we spared you the
knowledge, thinking that all might yet be accommodated, and never
expecting it would come on you in this sudden way.'

'Then I think I have been unfairly used,' cried Clara; 'I have been
brought here on false pretences. As if I would have come near the
place if I had known it!'

'A very false pretence that your grandmother must not be left alone at
eighty, by the child whom she brought up.'

'Oh, Louis! you want to tear me to pieces!'

'I have pity on my aunt; I have far more pity on your uncle.' Clara
stared at him. 'Here is a man who started with a grand heroic purpose
to redeem the estate, not for himself, but for her and his brother; he
exiles himself, he perseveres, till this one pursuit, for which he
denies himself home, kindred, wife or child, absorbs and withers him
up. He returns to find his brother dead; and the children, for whom he
sacrificed all, set against him, and rejecting his favours.'

This was quite a new point of view to Clara. 'It is his own fault,'
she said.

'That a misfortune is by our own fault is no comfort,' said Louis. 'His
apparent neglect, after all, arose from his absorption in the one
object.'

'Yes; but how shameful to wish James to forget his Ordination.'

'A strong way of putting it. He asked too much: but he would