“You know Dick Prescott left Stella all his money, well——”
“But, mother, I didn’t know anything about it.”
“It was rather vague. He left it first to some old lady whom he intended to live four or five years, but she died this week, and so Stella inherits it at once. About two thousand a year. It’s all in land, and will have to be managed. Huntingdonshire, or some country nobody believes in. It’s all very difficult. She must marry at once.”
“But, mother, why because she is to be better off and own land in Huntingdonshire, is she to marry at once?” asked Michael.
“To avoid fortune-hunters, odd foreign counts, and people.”
“But she’s not twenty-one yet,” he objected.
“My dearest boy, I know, I know. That’s why she must marry. Don’t you see, when she’s of age, she’ll be able to marry whom she likes, and you know how headstrong Stella is.”
“Mother,” said Michael suddenly, “supposing she married Alan?”
“Delightful boy,” she commented.
“You mean he’s too young?”