"You do not like the idea, it seems; but what better thing could there be for Aldyth?"
"That depends on how she would regard it," said Miss Lorraine, drily.
"She has no fortune," he continued, without heeding his niece's words. "Her mother has given her up; but if she had not done so, she has nothing to leave her daughter."
"Aldyth will not be penniless," said her aunt, quietly. "All that I have to leave will be hers when I am no more."
Stephen Lorraine made no comment on this statement. Evidently he thought the £300 a year Miss Lorraine had inherited from her father a poor thing in comparison with the joint possession of Wyndham and the fortune he had accumulated.
"It seems to me," said Miss Lorraine, with sudden boldness, "it seems to me a dangerous thing to make plans of this kind. If the two are drawn to each other, all well and good; but you cannot be sure that Aldyth would be Guy's choice, or, supposing it were so, that she could love him."
"Nonsense!" said the old man sharply. "I tell you she does love him. She'll be all right if you do not stuff her head with rubbish. What's all this about the literature lectures? Who's that young fellow they tell me is constantly at your house?"
Miss Lorraine coloured.
"Oh, Tabitha Rudkin!" she said within herself. "This is your doing."
But she replied calmly—