PRINTED BY
KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS;
AND MIDDLE MILL KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.
CONTENTS
| CHAP. | |
| I. | --[Finance.] |
| II. | --[Mary Selby meets her Daughter.] |
| III. | --[Considine.] |
| IV. | --[Betsey en Fete.] |
| V. | --[Randolph's Tribulations.] |
| VI. | --[A Benevolent Spider.] |
| VII. | --[In the Rue des Borgnes.] |
| VIII. | --[The Tie of Kindred.] |
| IX. | --[Tobogganing.] |
| X. | --[Annette.] |
| XI. | --[Bluff.] |
| XII. | --[A Board Meeting.] |
A RICH MAN'S RELATIVES.
CHAPTER I.
[FINANCE].
The sunshine and the glow faded slowly out of the air, the world fell into shadow, and the heavens changed their sunset glory for the blue transparency of summer twilight. Evening spread wings of soothing calm over the drowsy land, worn out, as a child might be, with its day-long revel in the garish light. The air grew softened and refreshed with falling dews which gathered unnoticed on the leaves and grass blades. The winds were still, and only fire-flies, blinking among the herbage or pursuing aimless flights across the deepening dimness, disturbed the perfect rest.
Along the dusty road came sounds of wheels, the wheels of the Misses Stanleys' home-going guests. The sound spread far and wide across the humid air which sublimated it into something above the common daylight noise, rasping and jarring against stones and gravel, into a rumbling half musical with suggestive echoes reverberating through the stillness.
Out of the gate they came, those vehicles, along the road, around the corner where Bruneau's cottage stood, and down towards the village shrouded in gathering obscurity, with the twinkle of a candle scattered through it here and there in rivalry of the fire-flies in the bushes nearer hand, but far less brilliant. The vehicles rumbled and disappeared, and the echoes of their wheels died out as ripples die on the surface of a stagnant pool; and the road was left alone to night and silence.