make you an Honourable. Anyway, my girl, although you ain’t exactly a beauty,” here he considered her with a critical eye, “you’ll make a fine figure of a woman and with your money, you should be able to get any husband you like. What’s more,” and he banged his fist upon the table, “I expect you to do it; that’s your part of the family business. Do you understand?” 

 “I understand, Father, that you expect me to get any husband I like. Well, I’ll promise that.” 

 “I think you ought to come into the office, you are so smart,” replied Sir John with sarcasm. “But don’t you try it on me, for I’m smarter. You know very well that I mean any husband I like, when I say ‘any husband you like.’ Now do you understand?” 

 “Yes,” replied Isobel icily. “I understand that you want to buy me a husband as you have bought a title. Well, titles and husbands are alike in one thing; once taken you can never be rid of them day or night. So I’ll say at once, to save trouble afterwards, that I would rather earn my living as a farm girl, and as for your money, Father, you can do what you wish with it.” 

 Then looking him straight in the eyes, she turned and left the room. 

 “An odd child!” thought Sir John to himself as he stared after her. “Anyway, she has got spirit and no doubt will come all right in time when she learns what’s what.” 

 

CHAPTER III THE PLANTAGENET LADY

 In the course of these years of adolescence, Godfrey Knight had developed into a rather unusual stamp of youth. In some ways he was clever, for instance at the classics and history which he had always liked; in others and especially where figures were concerned, he was stupid, or as his father called him, idle. In company he was apt to be shy and dull, unless some subject interested him, when to the astonishment of those present, he would hold forth and show knowledge and powers of reflection beyond his years. By nature he was intensely proud; the one thing he never forgot was a rebuff, or forgave, was an insult. Sir John Blake soon found this out, and not liking the lad, whose character was antagonistic to his own in every way, never lost an opportunity of what he called “putting him in his place,” perhaps because something warned him that this awkward, handsome boy would become a stumbling-block to his successful feet. 

 Godfrey and Isobel were both great readers. Nor did they lack for 

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