“I have not the slightest idea where my money is,” added Miss Moffat; “but if any of it is available, I should like to help.”
“Not to be thought of,” suggested Mrs. Hartley. “I am sure Lord Ardmorne agrees with me, when I say the idea ought not to be entertained for a moment.”
“I really am at a loss—” began the nobleman.
“If you are sensitive, Grace, you can leave us,” said Mrs. Hartley; “if not, you can hear what I say. There was a time, my lord, when this young lady’s fortune would have infused new blood into the Woodbrook estate, when a very honourable and honest young gentleman who was very fond of her asked her to be his wife. But she could not fancy him. It was a pity, still such things will happen. Without further explanation, you will see at once that if Miss Moffat stepped forward at this juncture to offer assistance, her feelings and motives might be misconstrued. Her views have undergone no change, but it might be imagined they had.”
Grace sat chafing in her place, whilst Mrs. Hartley delivered herself of this long sentence, but she did not speak. Lord Ardmorne, after studying the pattern of the carpet for a moment or two, looked up and said with a twinkle in his kindly eyes,—
“Yes, I agree with you, though it does seem hard a young lady should be unable to help a friend because his son was once her suitor. These difficulties are boulders in the path of life, but still we must all face them. If, however, I am not greatly mistaken in Miss Moffat, she is one of those who are given—
“To do good by stealth,
And blush to find it fame,”
and, supposing money be urgently needed, I fancy she would lend it to me and let me take the credit of helping the General and his family at this crisis. You would trust me, Miss Moffat, to take as much care of your pride as I should of your fortune?”
Said Grace—“My lord, I would trust you with my life,” and passed out into the conservatory, thinking that if the Glendares had been made of such stuff as this, it would have seemed a glorious lot to link her fortune with that of Robert Somerford—even although the ways and doings of the nobility are not as the ways and doings of the class from which she sprung.