When that excellent aged lady, Miss Regina van Tromp, sister to the well-known Paris banker, was felled by a stroke of apoplexy, the personal calamity might, by a mind taking all things into account, have been considered balanced by the circumstance that it was affording employment to some refined woman of reduced means, capable of taking care of the invalid.  It had the further advantage that, coming suddenly as it did, it absorbed the attention of Miss Lucilla van Tromp, the sick lady’s companion and niece, who became unable henceforth to give to the household of her cousin, Derek Pruyn, that general supervision which a kindly old maid can exercise in the home of a young and prosperous widower.  Were Destiny on the lookout for still another opening, she could have found it in the fact that Miss Dorothea Pruyn, whose father’s discipline came by fits and starts, while his indulgence was continuous, had reached a point in motherless maidenhood where, according to Miss Lucilla, “something ought to be done.”  There was thus unrest, and a straining after new conditions, in that very family toward which Mrs. Eveleth’s imagination turned from this dreary, leaden sea as to a possible haven.

Since the wonderful morning when the banker had brought her the news of her little inheritance her thoughts had dwelt much on Van Tromps and Pruyns, as representatives of that old New York clan with which she deigned to claim alliance; and she found no small comfort in going over, again and again, the details of the interview which had brought her once more into contact with her kin.  James van Tromp, she informed Diane, as they lay covered with rugs in their steamer-chairs, had been gruff in manner, but kind in heart, like all the Van Tromps she had ever heard of.  He had not scrupled to dwell upon her past extravagance, but he had tempered his remarks by commending her resolution to return to her old home and friends.  In the matter of friends, he assured her, she would find herself with very few.  She would be forgotten by some and ignored by others; while those who still took an interest in her would resent the fact that in the days of her prosperity she had neglected them.  In any case, she must have the meekness of the suppliant.  As her means at most would be small, she must be grateful if any of her relatives would take her without wages, as a sort of superior lady’s maid, and save her the expense of board and lodging.

“And so you see, dear,” she finished, humbly, “it’s going to be all right.  George thought of me; and far more than any money, I value that.  James van Tromp said that this sum had been placed in his hands some time ago to be specially used for me, and I couldn’t help understanding what that meant.  When my boy saw the disaster coming he did his best to protect me; and it will be my part now to show that he did enough.”

If Diane listened to these familiar remarks, it was only to take a dull satisfaction in the working of her scheme; but Mrs. Eveleth’s next words startled her into sudden attention.