'No, no,' said Bessie, 'we can't say that. Our great-grandfather had a right to do what he did with his money. And if he had left it to our grandfather, it would all have been wasted, most likely.'
'If he had known how good father was going to be, he'd have left it to him, I daresay,' said Margaret.
'He couldn't have known that,' said Bessie with a merry laugh. 'Father wasn't born when he died.'
'No, but just because of that, Lady Myrtle should make up for it now,' said Frances. 'I daresay I shouldn't call her "horrid," and of course she's your aunt, and I can scarcely believe she does know all about you. Perhaps she never got your other aunt's letter.'
'Oh yes, she did,' said Bessie. 'She answered it by sending it back with a note saying that none of the descendants of the late Bernard Harper were kith or kin of hers.'
'How wicked!' exclaimed Frances.
'No, no, it's not right to say that, Frances dear,' said both sisters. 'Father says,' Bessie went on, 'that no one knows what her brothers made her suffer, and how good she was to them, standing between them and her father, and devoting herself to them, and hoping against hope, even about our grandfather, till I suppose she had to give him up. It is awfully sad, and for her sake as well as ours, mother and I have often said how we wished she knew father. He would make up to her for the disappointment in her brothers.'
'Isn't Lord Elvedon nice?' asked Frances; 'that's her other nephew, isn't he?'
'Oh yes, I think he's a good sort of a man, but not clever,' said Bessie. 'Not like father.'
'And then our boys,' added Margaret. 'They are so good and so clever.'