But there were not wanting many men and women who said that they had thought that the mother of the Saviour must have looked like Mary Lys.
"No! I've really no patience with either of you!" Lady Kirwan repeated.
"But, Aunt Ethel, surely we ought to live our own lives. I am quite happy with my nursing in the East End. One can't do more good than by trying to nurse and cure the sick, can one? And Lluellyn is happy also in his Welsh mountains. He lives a very saintly life, auntie—a life of prayer and preaching and good works, even if it is unconventional and seems strange to you. I would not have it otherwise. Lluellyn is not suited for the modern world."
"Fiddlesticks, Mary!" Lady Kirwan answered. "'Modern world,' indeed! You speak as if you said 'Modern pestilence'! Who made the world, I should like to know? And what right have you and your brother to despise it? I'm sick of all this nonsense. How a girl with your looks and of your blood, for there is hardly a peer in England with such a pedigree as that of our family, can go on grubbing away nursing horrible people with horrible diseases in that dreadful East End I can't possibly imagine. You've no money, of course, for your two hundred a year is a mere nothing. But what does that matter? Haven't your uncle and I more than we know what to do with? Marjorie has already an enormous fortune settled upon her. She is almost certain to marry the Duke of Dover next season. Well, what do we offer you—you and Lluellyn? You are to be as our second daughter. We will give you everything that a girl can have in this world. You shall share in our wealth as if you were my own daughter. With your looks and the money which is available for you, you may marry any one. We stand well at Court. His Majesty is pleased when one of the great old families of the realm restores its fallen fortunes. Every chance and opportunity is yours. As for your brother, as I have so often written and told him, he will be a son to us. We have not been given a son; he shall become one. There is enough and to spare for all. Give up this nonsense of yours. Make Lluellyn come to his senses and leave his absurd hermit life, and this mad preaching about in the mountain villages. Come to us at once, both of you. What more could any one offer you, child? Am I not pleading with you out of my love for you and my nephew, out of a sincere desire to see you both take your proper place in the world?"
Lady Kirwan stopped, a little out of breath after her long speech, every word of which had been uttered with the sincerest conviction and prompted by real affection.
There was probably no more worldly woman in London than the kindly wife of the great financier. The world was all in all to her, and she was as destitute of religion or any knowledge of spiritual things as the parish pump. She would not have divided her last shilling with any one, but she was generous with her superfluity.
And certainly one of the great wishes of her life was to see the ancient family from which she had sprung once more take a great place in life. She felt within her veins the blood of those old wild princes of the "stormy hills of Wales"—those Arthurs and Uthers, Caradocs and Lluellyns innumerable, who had kept their warlike courts in the dear mountains of her home.
It was monstrous, it was incredible to Lady Kirwan that the last two survivors of the Lys family in the direct line should live obscure, strange lives away from the world. Mary Lys a hospital nurse in the East End! Lluellyn Lys a sort of anchorite and itinerant preacher! It was inconceivable; it must be stopped.
"I will write to Lluellyn again, auntie," Mary said, rising from her chair. "But, honestly, I fear it will be of little use. And as for myself—"
As she spoke the door opened, and a footman entered the room.