return to her; with a little laugh at her own image (on
which she builds her hopes), she defies fate, and, running down the
staircase with winged feet, finds herself on the last step, almost in
Philip's arms.

"Abroad so early!" he says, with a smile; and the kindliness of his
tone, the more than kindness of his glance, confirm her hopes of the
morning. She is looking very pretty, and Philip likes pretty women,
hence the kindly smile. And yet, though he might have done so without
rebuke (perhaps because of that), he forgot to kiss her. "You are the
early bird, and you have caught me," he says. "I can only hope you will
not make your breakfast off me. See,"--holding out to her an unclosed
letter,--"the deed is done. I have written to my solicitor to get me
the money from Lazarus and Harty."

"Oh, Philip! I have been thinking," she says, following him into the
library, "and now it seems to me a risk. You know his horror of
Jews,--you know how he speaks of your own father and his unfortunate
dealings with them. Yesterday I felt brave, and advised you, as I fear,
wrongly; to-day----"

"I have been thinking it over too,"--lighting the taper on the table,
and applying the sealing-wax to the flame,--"and now it seems to me the
only course left open. And yet"--speaking gayly, but pausing as the wax
falls upon the envelope--"perhaps--who knows?--I may be sealing my own
fate."

"You make me superstitious. Why imagine horrors? Yet if you have any
doubts, Philip,"--laying one shapely white finger upon the letter,--"do
not send it. Something tells me to warn you. And, besides, are you
quite sure they will lend you the money?"

"They will hardly refuse a paltry two thousand to the heir of Herst
Royal."

"But you are not the heir."

"In the eyes of the world I am."

"And yet they know it can be left to any one else."

"To you, for instance."

"That would hardly alter your position, except that you would be then,
not heir, but master," she says, smiling sweetly at him. "No, I was
supposing myself also disinherited. This cousin that is
coming,--Eleanor Massereene,--she, too, is his grandchild."

As a rule, when speaking of those we hate, quite as much as when
speaking of those we love, we use the pronoun alone. Mr. Amherst is
"he" always to his relatives.

"What! Can you believe it possible a little uneducated country girl,
with probably a snub nose, thick boots, and no manners to speak of, can
cut you out? Marcia, you