“It is not that. I mean—have I anything of my own?”
After a little pause. “There is a—small provision made for you by my marriage settlement,” Lady Markham said.
“And—once more—could, oh, could I have it, mamma?”
“My dear child! you must be out of your senses. How could you have it at your age—unless you were going to marry?”
This suggestion Frances rejected with the contempt it merited. “I shall never marry,” she said; “and there never could be a time when it would be of so much importance to me to have it as now. Oh, tell me, is there no way by which I could have it now?”
“Sir Thomas is one of our trustees. Ask him. I do not think he will let you have it, Frances. But perhaps you could tell him what you want, if you will not have confidence in me. Money is just the thing that is least easy for me. I could give you almost anything else; but money I have not. What can you want money for, a girl like you?”
Frances hesitated before she replied. “I would rather not tell you,” she said; “for very likely you would not approve; but it is nothing—wrong.”
“You are very honest, my dear. I do not suppose for a moment it is anything wrong. Ask Sir Thomas,” Lady Markham said, with a smile. The smile had meaning in it, which to Frances was incomprehensible. “Sir Thomas—will refuse nothing he can in reason give—of that I am sure.”
Sir Thomas, when he came in shortly afterwards, said that he would not disturb Lady Markham. “For I see you are busy, and I have something to say to Frances.”
“Who has also something to say to you,” Lady Markham said, with a benignant smile. Her heart gave a throb of satisfaction. It was all she could do to restrain herself, not to tell the dear friend to whom she was writing that there was every prospect of a most happy establishment for dear Frances. And her joy was quite genuine and almost innocent, notwithstanding all she knew.