"Not on my mother's side. Grandpa had but three children, you know,—my mother, and Philip's mother, and Marcia's father: he married an Italian actress, which must have been a terrible mésalliance, and yet Marcia is made much of, while I am not even recognized. Does it not sound unfair?"
"Unaccountable. Especially as I have often heard your mother was his favorite child!"
"Perhaps that explains his harshness. To be deceived by one we love engenders the bitterest hatred of all. And yet how could he hate poor mamma? John says she had the most beautiful, lovable face."
"I can well believe it," replied he, gazing with undisguised admiration upon the perfect profile beside him.
"And Marcia will be an heiress, I suppose?"
"She and Philip will divide everything, people say, the place, of course, going to Philip. Lucky he! Any one might envy him. You know they both live there entirely, although Marcia's mother is alive and resides somewhere abroad. Philip was in some dragoon regiment, but sold out about two years ago: debt, I fancy, was the cause, or something like it."
"Marcia is the girl you ought to have fallen in love with, Ted."
"No, thank you; I very much prefer her cousin. Besides, I should have no chance, as she and Philip are engaged to each other: they thought it a pity to divide the twenty thousand pounds a year. Do you know, Molly, I never knew what it was to covet my neighbor's goods until I met you? so you have that to answer for; but it does seem hard that one man should be so rich, and another so poor."
"Are you poor, Teddy?"
"Very. Will that make you like me less?"