'It is not wealth you wait for?'

'No.'

'What then, Laura?'

'Nothing.'

'How I shall laugh if the handsome Captain Dalton stirs that now unimpressionable heart of yours.'

'I shall be very glad to meet him,' said Mrs. Trelawney, with a curious hardness in her voice.

'Why?'

'Because I may compel him to love me, Alison,' and as Mrs. Trelawney spoke her eyes flashed with a triumphant glow such as Alison had never seen in them before.

'Compel him?'

'Yes.'