'It would all have been over now.'
'It ought not. Nay, perhaps, my presence might have left my uncle free to attend to his own concerns.'
'I really believe you are going to regret the place!'
'After all, Clara, I was a Dynevor before my uncle came home. It might have been my birthright. But, as Isabel says, what we are now is far more likely to be safe for the children. I was bad enough as I was, but what should I have been as a pampered heir! Let it go.'
'Yes, let it go,' said Clara; 'it has been little but pain to me. We shall teach my poor uncle that home love is better than old family estates. I almost wish he may recover nothing in Peru, that he may learn that you receive him for his own sake.'
'That is more than I can wish,' said James. 'A hundred or two a-year would come in handily. Besides, I am afraid that Mary Ponsonby may be suffering in this crash.'
'She seems to have taken care of herself,' said Clara. 'She does not write to me, and I am almost ready to believe her father at last. I could not have thought it of her!'
'Isabel has always said it was the best thing that could happen to Louis.'
'Isabel never had any notion of Louis. I don't mean any offence, but if she had known what he was made of, she would never have had you.'
'Thank you, Clara! I always thought it an odd predilection, but no one can now esteem Fitzjocelyn more highly than ahe does.'