But Pauline Darrell only laughed. Such fears never affected her; she
would sooner have expected to see the heavens fall at her feet than that
Sir Oswald should not leave Darrell Court to her--his niece, a Darrell,
with the Darrell face and the Darrell figure, the true, proud features
of the race. He would never dare to do otherwise, she thought, and she
would not condescend to change either her thought or speech to please
him.

"The Darrells do not know fear," she would say; "there never yet was an
example of a Darrell being frightened into anything."

So the breach between the uncle and the niece grew wider every day. He
could not understand her; the grand, untrained, undisciplined, poetical
nature was beyond him--he could neither reach its heights nor fathom its
depths. There were times when he thought that, despite her outward
coldness and pride, there was within a soul of fire, when he dimly
understood the magnificence of the character he could not read, when he
suspected there might be some souls that could not be narrowed or forced
into a common groove. Nevertheless he feared her; he was afraid to
trust, not the honor, but the fame of his race to her.

"She is capable of anything," he would repeat to himself again and
again. "She would fling the Darrell revenues to the wind; she would
transform Darrell Court into one huge observatory, if astronomy pleased
her--into one huge laboratory, if she gave herself to chemistry. One
thing is perfectly clear to me--she can never be my heiress until she is
safely married."

And, after great deliberation--after listening to all his heart's
pleading in favor of her grace, her beauty, her royal generosity of
character, the claim of her name and her truth--he came to the decision
that if she would marry Captain Langton, whom he loved perhaps better
than any one else in the world, he would at once make his will, adopt
her, and leave her heiress of all that he had in the world.

One morning the captain confided in him, telling him how dearly he loved
his beautiful niece, and then Sir Oswald revealed his intentions.

"You understand, Aubrey," he said--"the girl is magnificently
beautiful--she is a true Darrell; but I am frightened about her. She is
not like other girls; she is wanting in tact, in knowledge of the world,
and both are essential. I hope you will win her. I shall die content if
I leave Darrell Court in your hands, and if you are her husband. I could
not pass her o