some day find it. It came upon him with dismay that she was growing up, that this tall girl of over seventeen would soon be a woman, and that she was going to be beautiful. Pale generally, and almost haughty looking, dreams in her eyes, and gold in the brown of her hair, and a mouth that had her mother's sweet, curved lips. A girl's face and simple, but eager and even thoughtful, the impulses of youth characterized her still, but womanhood was on its way, and now and then, in spite of her happy laugh, her blue eyes looked as if unconsciously they knew that tragedy dwelt somewhere in the world, and feared lest they should meet it. But as yet Hannah's scoldings were the only trouble that had beset her. These were not to be taken lightly, for as she grew older Hannah's tone became harsher, her manner more dominant, and the shrinking from Margaret and her father, that she had always felt, did not grow less. Margaret bore it all fairly well, sometimes resisting or passionately protesting that she would run away from the farm and the scold who had taken its whole direction into her hands, and at others hiding herself in one of the lofts till the storm had passed. When it was over she crept out to her mother--always to her mother at those times--to be soothed and caressed. Even Mr. Vincent felt that Hannah was a hard nut to crack; but he contented himself with the thought that some day Margaret would break away from her present surroundings--a beautiful girl, who had read a good deal and was cultivating the habit of thinking, was not likely to make Woodside Farm her whole share of the world.

The beginning of the end came one October morning in a letter from his brother in Australia. It had been sent under cover to his lawyers; for, though in a general way, the brothers knew each other's whereabouts, in detail they knew nothing. Cyril Vincent (he was now, of course, Lord Eastleigh) was ill of an incurable disease, and though he had no intention of returning, his thoughts were reaching out to England. His early career had been a disgrace, his marriage had proved a ghastly failure, and the least he could do was to cover it up, together with his own life, on the other side of the world. Gradually he had developed a strong sense of social and moral obligation that had made him hate himself when he remembered the advantages to which he had been born. Of what use had he been with his dissipated habits, he thought bitterly, or could he be now that he saw the folly of them, with his health permanently ruined, his wife vulgar and often drunken? If birth or accident had given such people the right to be counted as aristocracy, then, by every law of Heaven, and for the sake of those things that make for the salvation of 

 Prev. P 13/207 next