"We should be so pleased to welcome a little heir, my dear. Is it so?"
Lucy--she had just dressed for dinner, and dismissed Aglaé--coloured painfully. Mrs. Cleeve smiled.
"No, mamma, I think there is no cause of that kind," she answered, in a low, nervous tone. And only herself knew the bitter pang that pierced her as she remembered how certain it was that there could be no such cause for the future.
But Mrs. Cleeve held to her own private opinion. "The child is shy in these early days, even with me," she thought. "I'll say no more."
One morning during this time, Karl was sitting alone in his room, when Hewitt came to him to say Smith the agent was asking to see him. Karl did not like Smith the agent: he doubted, dreaded, and did not comprehend him.
"Will you see him, sir?" asked Hewitt, in a low tone, perceiving the lines on his master's brow.
"I suppose I must see him, Hewitt," was the reply--and the confidential, faithful servant well understood the force of the must. "Show him in."
"Beg pardon for disturbing you so early, Sir Karl," said the agent, as Hewitt brought him in and placed a chair. "There's one of your small tenants dropping into a mess, I fancy. He has got the brokers in for taxes, or something of that kind. I thought I'd better let you know at once."
Hewitt shut the door, and Karl pushed away the old letters he had been sorting. Sir Joseph's papers and effects had never been examined yet; but Karl was settling to the work now. That Mr. Smith had spoken in an unusually loud and careless tone, he noticed: and therefore judged that this was but the ostensible plea for his calling, given lest any ears should be about.
"Which of my tenants is it, Mr. Smith!" he quietly asked.