'My brother! my brother! I go with my brother!' was still her vehement cry. Without listening to her cousin's last words, she made a gesture to put him aside, and rose to hurry to her brother.

But Louis stood before her, and spoke gravely. 'Very well. Yield yourself to his management. Go back to be another burden upon a household, poor enough already to sour him with cares. Let him tell your uncle that both his brother's children loathe the fruit of the self-sacrifice of a lifetime. Transgress your grandmother's wishes; condemn that poor man to a desolate, objectless, covetous old age; make the breach irreconcilable for ever; and will James be the better or the happier for your allowing his evil temper the full swing?'

Clara wrung her hands. 'My uncle! Yes, what shall I do with my uncle? If I could only have them both?'

'This way you would have neither. Keep the straight path, and you may end in having both.'

'Straight—I don't know what straight is! It must be right to cling to my own brother in his noble poverty. Oh! that he should imagine me caring for this horrid, horrid state and grandeur!'

Louis recurred to the old argument, that James did not know what he was saying, and recalled her to the remembrance of what she had felt to be the right course before James's ebullition. She owned it most reluctantly; but oh! she said, would James still forgive her, and not believe such dreadful things, but trust and be patient with her, and perhaps Uncle Oliver might after all be set on going to Peru, and beyond remonstrance. Then it would all come right—no, not right, for granny had dreaded his going. Confused and distressed by the conflicting claims, Clara was thankful for the present respite given to her by Louis's promise that his father should sound her uncle as to his wishes and intentions. Lord Ormersfield's upright, unimpassioned judgment appeared like a sort of refuge from the conflict of the various claims, and he was besides in a degree, her guardian, being the sole executor of the only will which Mrs. Frost had ever made, soon after the orphans came under her charge, giving the Terrace to James, and dividing the money in the Funds between the two.

Weeping, but not unhopeful—convinced, though not acknowledging it—only praying for strength and patience, and hungering for one kind word from James—Clara quitted that almost brother, in whose counsel he had constrained her to seek relief, and went to her own chamber, there to throw herself on the guidance of that Friend, who sticketh closer than a brother.

The remaining part of the day passed quietly. James did not consciously make any difference in his manner, meaning to be still affectionate, though disappointed, and pitying her mistake, both as to her present happiness and future good.

Lord Ormersfield and Walter arrived in the evening, and James applied himself to finding occupation for his brother-in-law, whom he kept out of the way in the garden very satisfactorily. The Earl was so softened and sorrowful, that Clara hardly knew him. He deeply felt the loss of the kind, gentle aunt, whose sympathy had been more to him than he had known at the time; the last remnant of the previous generation, the last link with his youth, and he was even more grieved for the blank she left with Louis than for himself. By Louis's desire, he inquired into Oliver's intentions. 'Must stay here,' was the answer. 'Can't leave that child alone with the property. I can look to the Equatorial Company here—must do without me out there. No, no, I can't leave the girl to her brother; he'd teach her his own nasty, spiteful temper, and waste the property on all those brats. No, I'm fixed here; I must look after Henry's child, fine girl, good-tempered girl; takes after Henry, don't you think so?'

That Clara took after her father in anything but being tall and fair, would hardly have been granted by any one who knew her better than the Earl, but he readily allowed it, and Oliver proceeded:—'As long as she does not marry, here I am; but I trust some one will soon take the care of her off my hands—man who would look after the property well. She's a good girl too, and the finest figure in the whole county; lucky him who gets her. I shall be sorry to part with the child, too, but I shall be working for her, and there's nothing left that cares a rush for me now, so I might as well be out of the way of the young things. I know the old place at Lima, and the place knows me; and what do I care for this now my mother is gone? If I could only see Clara safe settled here, then I should care as little what became of me as I suppose she would.'