‘Oh yes, my love, he has a little,’ Mrs. Mountford said; ‘one says a man has nothing when he has not enough to settle upon; but most people have a little. I suppose he lives in London in chambers, like most unmarried men. No, he has no brothers and sisters,—but, yes, I forgot there is one—a young one—whom he is very much attached to, people say.’
‘And he will have Mount when papa dies,’ said Rose. ‘How strange that, though papa has two children, it should go away to quite a different person, not even a very near relation! It is very unjust; don’t you think it is very unjust? I am sure it is not a thing that ought to be.’
‘It is the entail, my dear. You must remember the entail.’
‘But what is the good of an entail? If we had had a brother, it might have been a good thing to keep it in the family; but surely, when we have no brother, we are the proper heirs. It would be more right even, if one person were to have it all, that Anne should be the person. She,’ said Rose, with a little fervour, ‘would be sure to take care of me.’
‘I think so too, Rosie,’ said her mother; ‘but then Anne will not always just be Anne. She will marry somebody, and she will not have a will of her own—at least not such a will of her own. There is one way,’ Mrs. Mountford added with a laugh, ‘in which things are sometimes put right, Rose. Do you remember Mr. Collins in Miss Austen’s novel? He came to choose a wife among the Miss Bennetts to make up for taking their home from them. I am afraid that happens oftener in novels than in real life. Perhaps,’ she said, laughing again, but with artificial mirth, ‘your cousin Heathcote is coming to look at you girls to see whether he would like one of you for his wife.’
‘I daresay,’ said Rose calmy; ‘that went through my mind too. He would like Anne, of course, if he could get her; but then Anne—likes somebody else.’
‘There are more people than Anne in the world,’ said the mother, with some indignation. ‘Anne! we all hear so much of Anne that we get to think there is nobody like her. No, my pet, a man of Heathcote Mountford’s age—it is not anything like Anne he is thinking of; they don’t want tragedy queens at that age; they want youth.’
‘You mean, mamma, said Rose, still quite serious, ‘that he would like me best.’
‘My pet, we don’t talk of such things. It is quite time enough when they happen, if they ever happen.’
‘But I prefer to talk about them,’ said Rose. ‘It would be very nice to keep Mount; but then, if Anne had all the money, what would be the good of Mount? We, I mean, could never keep it up.’