ave never even thought why he comes here so frequently?"

"No, sir," Rupert said, surprised; "it was no business of mine, and
I gave no single thought to it."

"He is a suitor for your lady mother's hand," Colonel Holliday
said, gravely.

"What!" almost shouted Rupert; "What, sir! He, with his sneering
face, dares to think--"

"My dear boy, he not only dares to think, but madam approves of the
thought, and has promised him her hand."

Rupert stood motionless.

"It shall not be," he burst out. "We must stop it, sir. Why do not
you?"

"I have no shadow of authority over Mistress Holliday," the old
colonel said. "As far as I could go, for your sake I have
gone--farther, perhaps, than was wise. It has been a great blow for
me, Rupert. I had hoped that in the time to come you would be
master of the Chace, and of all the broad acres I owned when young;
now it will never be. This house and the home farm are mine, and
will be yours, lad; but the outlying land will never come back to
the Chace again, but will go to swell the Haugh estate on the other
side. My lady can leave it as she likes. I have begged her to have
it settled upon you, but she has declined. She may have another
family, and, infatuated as she is with her suitor, she is more
likely to leave it to them than to you, especially as I fear that
you will not take kindly to the new arrangement."

"I will not submit to it, sir; I will not have it. I will insult
him, and force him to fight me," the lad gasped, his face white
with passion.

"No, Rupert, it won't do, lad. Were you four or five years older
you might interfere; now he would laugh at you for a headstrong
boy. You would gain his hate, and forfeit your mother's favour
utterly. It was because I feared an outbreak like this that I told
you today what you will in a few hours learn from her."

"What is to be done?" Rupert said, despairingly.

"Nothing, my boy. At her marriage, your mother will of course live
at the Haugh with Sir William. This house is mine, and if you
cannot get on at the Haugh, it will be always open to you."

"I will never set my foot inside the Haugh," Rupert said, firmly.
"My lady mother may leave her lands where she will; but if I am to
have them only at the price of being the humble servant of this new
father-in-law, I care not for them. He has an evil face,
grandfather, and I hated him before I knew what he came for."

"My boy," Colonel Holliday said, "we have all many thin