to each other, should marry, but nothing would please me so much as that they should take a fancy to each other; and thrown together as they would be here, for Mabel is constantly at the house, it is just possible that one of those boy and girl affections, which do sometimes, although perhaps rarely, culminate in marriage, might spring up between them.  Whether that may be so in the present case I must leave to fate, but I should at any rate like to pave the way for such an arrangement by bringing the young people together.  I need not say that it will be best that neither of them should have the slightest idea of what is in my mind, for this would be almost certain to defeat my object.

“If the proposal is agreeable to you, I hope that you will let Ralph come to me at the beginning of his holidays; which must, I fancy, be now near at hand.  I think it will be as well that he should not know of my intention as to the disposal of my property, for it is better he should think that he will have to work for his living; but at the same time there would be no harm in his knowing that it is probable I shall help him on in life.  This will make him bear better what would otherwise be a dull visit.  But I leave this matter entirely in your hands.  You know the boy and I do not, and you can therefore better judge what will be best for him to know.  And now, dear Mary, if you will pardon my once again calling you so,

    “I remain,

    “Your affectionate friend,

    “Herbert Penfold.”

It was characteristic of Mrs. Conway that at the first reading of this letter she thought rather of the writer than of the bright prospects which his offer opened to her son.  She thought rather of Herbert Penfold, her first love, now ill, if not dying, of the days of their engagement and its rupture, than of the fact that her son was to inherit half the Penfold estates.  She had been sorely hurt at the time; and even after all these years it was a pleasure to her to know that the quarrel was not as she had often thought at the time, a mere pretext for breaking off the engagement, but that Herbert had really loved her, had cared for her all these years, and had been the mysterious friend whose kindness had so lightened her cares.

“I did not throw away my love after all,” she said to herself, as with her eyes full of tears she stood at the window and looked out towards the sea.  “He cared for me enough to be faithful all this time and to think of me constantly, while I had almost forgotten the past.  I ought to have known all the time that he was acting under the influence of others—­those sisters of his, of course.  I was always certain they hated me—­hated the thought of my becoming mistress of Penfold Hall.  I knew the influence they had over him.  Herbert had no will of his own—­it was the only fault I ever saw in him—­and they could twist him round their little fingers.  And now he is going to make Ralph his heir, or at least his heir with the girl he speaks of.  It is a grand thing for Ralph; for the estates were worth, he told papa, eight thousand a year, and if Herbert’s little romance comes off Ralph will have all.”