“Oh, yes; and, if he had been prudent, instead of spending heaps of money upon her education, he would have left her a little to live upon!”
“It must be a hard change for her, though. She is so young, and of course it is so natural to spoil a beautiful girl.”
This rather rash speech caused Mrs. Mansfield to draw herself up.
“Well, I can’t say that I see her beauty myself! I don’t say she is a bad-looking girl; but I don’t think her face is likely to do much for her: and in my young days gentlemen looked for something more than a pretty face in a wife, though to be sure they liked a pair of fine eyes too!”
George gathered from her manner of saying this that she judged her own vacant, round, bead-like eyes to be handsome; and he smiled a compliment, which brought a gratified but not becoming blush to her particularly plain face.
Before long he succeeded in getting from her Miss Lane’s address, in one of the streets off Regent Street; and, pondering this choice of a rather expensive locality, he left Mrs. Mansfield’s domestic paradise, and returned to town. At his hotel he found the following telegram:
“Come back at once. Sir George much worse. Harry has returned.”
That night he was again at the Grange—not a minute too soon. They told him, on his arrival, that his father was not expected to live till morning, and he went straight up to the sickroom. Harry was there on his knees by the bedside, very still and grave and unlike himself. Sir George opened his eyes as his eldest son came in.
“George,” said he, with difficulty, “I have forgiven him. Don’t let it be mentioned again. I cut him out of my will a week ago; it is too late to alter it. Promise me to provide for him.”
“I promise,” said George, in a low voice.