“Stop, Cornelius!” said his father. “I suspect we have a young philosopher where you see only the silly little brother. He has, I fancy, got a glimpse of something he does not yet know how to say.”

“In that case,” said Cornelius, “he had better hold his tongue till he does know how to say it.”

It was not often he dared to speak so to his father, but he was growing less afraid of him, though not through increase of love.

“They take everything for clever the little idiot says,? he thought to himself. “Nobody made anything of me when I was his age!”

The mail was soon brought in. Among them was one for Mr. Raymount with a broad black border. He looked at the postmark.

“This must be the announcement of cousin Strafford’s death!” he said. “Someone told me she was not expected to live.”

“You did not tell me she was ill,” said his wife.

“I forgot to. It has been so many years since I had the least communication with her, or even heard anything of her. She was a strange old soul!”

“You used to be close to her, didn’t you, papa?” asked Hester.

“Yes, at one time. But we differed so entirely it was impossible it should last. She would think the most peculiar things about what I thought and meant, and then fall out upon me as being in favour of things I disliked quite as much as she did. She took no trouble to try to understand what I was really saying. But that is often the way with people. They hardly know what they think themselves and can hardly be expected to know what other people mean.”

“I can’t understand why people should quarrel so about their opinions,” said Mrs. Raymount.

Her husband took up the letter, slowly broke the large black seal and began to read. His wife sat looking at him, waiting in expectation.

He had scarcely read half the first page when she saw his countenance change a little, then flush. He folded the letter, laid it down by the side of his plate, and began to eat again, with a fixed expression on his face.

“Well, dear?” said his wife.

“It is not quite what I thought,” he answered with a curious smile, then ate his toast in a brooding silence. Never in the habit of making secrets like his son, he nevertheless had a strong dislike of showing his feelings. Besides, he was too proud to reveal his interest in the special contents of this letter.

The poor, yet hopeless and hardly indulged, ambition of Mr. Raymount’s life was to possess a portion of earth—even if only an acre or two. He came of families possessing property, but none of it had come anywhere near him except what belonged to cousin Strafford. He was her nearest relation, but he had never hoped to inherit anything from her. After a final quarrel had put an end to their quarrelling, he had stopped seeing her altogether. For many years there had not been the slightest communication between the cousins. But in the course of those years, all the other relatives of the old lady had died, and, as the letter he now held informed him, he was after all heir to her property—a small estate in a lovely spot among the roots of the Cumberland hills. Quite a few thousand pounds in government securities accompanied the property.