"I am glad you can. You ought to by this time, for you have been pretty well seasoned to it. So, in the Helstonleigh house, remember, my old rooms are mine; and I intend to be the plague of your lives. After a time—may it be a long time!—I suppose it will be 'Mr. Halliburton of Deoffam Hall.'"
"What nonsense you talk, Henry!"
"Nonsense? I shall make it over to you. Catch me sticking myself out here in solitary state to the admiration of the peacock! What's the matter with you now, you two! Oh, well, if you turn up your noses at Deoffam, it shall never be yours. I'll leave it to the eldest chickabiddy. And mark you, please! I shall have him named 'Ashley,' and stand godfather to him; and, he'll be mine, and not yours. I shall do just as I like with the whole lot, if they count a score, and spoil them as much as I choose."
"What is the matter there?" exclaimed Mrs. Ashley, perceiving a commotion on the sofa.
Mary succeeded in freeing herself, and went away with a crimsoned face. "Mamma, I think Henry must be going out of his mind! He is talking so absurdly."
"Absurdly! Was what I said absurd, William?"
William laughed. "It was premature, at any rate."
Henry stretched up his hands and laid hold of William's. "It is true what Mary says—that I must be going out of my mind. So I am: with joy."
But the report of Herbert Dare's death proved to be a false one.