“I had unusual advantages myself certainly,” said Mrs Meredon, who had been many years in France and Germany.
Lady Mildred nodded her head without speaking. She had the greatest belief in her niece’s ability, and with good reason.
“Well, then,” she said, “we may consider it settled. I shall meet Claudia in London a week hence and see to a ‘trousseau’ for her, so give yourself no trouble on that head. You can explain to her all I have said. She will understand why I do not wish her to make friendships with any of the Wortherham girls whom she will be thrown with?”
“She will thoroughly understand that she is to follow your wishes in everything,” said Mrs Meredon. “But I must warn you that she is a very sociable child—the world seems to her a very much more delightful place than to most of us, for somehow she always manages to see the best side of people.”
“I hope she will see the best side of me then,” said Lady Mildred, rather grimly; “for I am a cantankerous old woman, and too old now to change. Claudia had better rub up her rose-coloured spectacles before she comes my way.”
And so, a fortnight later saw Lady Mildred’s grand-niece installed as the child of the house at Silverthorns, or, according to the local wiseacres who there, as everywhere, knew more of their neighbours’ affairs than the neighbours themselves, as “her ladyship’s adopted daughter, heiress to Silverthorns, and all the great accumulation of Osbert wealth.”
And certainly the girl’s sunny face and bright bearing gave some colour to Charlotte Waldron’s belief that Claudia Meredon was one of those favoured human beings “who have everything!”