"I'm ashamed to say that I don't quite know how I stand. The lawyers jawed about it the other day, and I did fully manage to understand that my uncle had left me everything. Was that fair, countess?" he added gravely.
"Yes," she replied simply. "He wanted to leave me all he could; but I would not let him. You know that I have enough, and much more than enough, of my own. So why should he leave me any more?"
Drake took her hand, and kissed it gratefully.
"You have been very good to me," he said, in a low voice. "Better than I have any right to expect, or deserve."
"No," she said. "And there is no need of gratitude. I wanted to atone——No, that's not the right word. I wanted to make up to you for the trouble I had, all unconsciously, caused between you and him. And—there was another reason, Drake. Don't get conceited; but I took a fancy to my nephew the first time I saw him." She laughed softly. "And just at present I have no other object in life than the attempt to make him happy."
Drake suppressed a sigh.
Happy? Oh, Nell, Nell! How vain and foolish all this splendor, now he had lost her!
"So you turned my rambling old place into a palace? Well, it was a substantial attempt, and if I am not happy, I shall be the most mulish and ungrateful of men. The place is perfect; it lacks nothing, I should say," he added, as they descended to the hall again.
"Only a mistress," thought Lady Angleford; but she was too wise to say so.
"You haven't told me who is here," he said, as he watched her pour out the tea which had been laid in a windowed recess from which was an exquisite view of the lawns and the park beyond.