“Kingsworth belonged to our family, and the entail was cut off and the place sold some time in the last century by the owner who had ruined himself on the turf. He, however, left two sons, who set to work in various ways to earn their own living, and from the elder of these I am descended. We have been solicitors ever since my grandfather’s time, and that Kingsworth ever belonged to us is a mere tradition. The younger son’s family went into trade and made, I suppose, a large fortune, for you know they bought Kingsworth back. Perhaps there was some old quarrel, we have never had any intercourse with them; but you see, I can’t exactly call myself disinherited.”
“Well, no; but still you come of course with indescribable feelings to see the birthplace of your race?”
Mr Kingsworth shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “When your cousin kindly gave me Mrs Deane’s invitation, he offered Kingsworth as an inducement, and I liked the idea of seeing it. I once called on the old Canon when I went to Fanchester, and he told me that the other branch was represented by a young lady. Is she here now?”
“She is just coming in. That is Mrs George Kingsworth, her mother, that is her cousin Emberance, and the little one is Katharine.”
“One of my sisters is called Emberance,” said Mr Kingsworth in a tone of surprise.
“Ah, you see the links are not quite broken. Come, and I will introduce you to your cousins.”
Neither Katharine nor her mother had ever realised the existence of these north-country Kingsworths; but Emberance, far better informed in all the family traditions, knew who he was at once, and expressed a proper amount of pleasure at meeting him.
Mrs Kingsworth, when the circumstances had been explained to her, felt a curious sense of perplexity at the discovery of an elder heir. She was obliged to repeat the story over again mentally to divest herself of the feeling that his appearance had in some way rendered the contention futile between the rights of Emberance and Katharine. She recollected a saying of the Canon’s which at the time had given her great umbrage.
“After all, Mary, one girl is much the same as another, it is not as if there were a boy in the case.”
“Right is right for girl or boy,” she had answered truly enough.