'Surely, surely.—And now——'
'Now'—Elsie rose—'I will not keep you any longer. You have said what you wished to say very kindly, and I thank you.'
'No.—Sit down again; I haven't done with you yet, child. Sit down again. No more about that young villain—George Austin.' He spoke so good-humouredly, that Elsie complied wondering, but no longer afraid. 'Nothing more about your engagement. Now, listen carefully, because this is most important. Three or four years ago a person wrote to me. That person informed me that he—for convenience we will call the person a man—wished to place a certain sum of money in my hands in trust—for you.'
'For me? Do you mean—in trust? What is Trust?'
'He gave me this sum of money to be given to you on your twenty-first birthday.'
'Oh!' Elsie sat up with open eyes. 'A sum of money?—and to me?'
'With a condition or two. The first condition was, that the interest should be invested as it came in: the next, that I was on no account—mind, on no account at all—to tell you or any one of the existence of the gift or the name of the donor. You are now twenty-one. I have been careful not to afford you the least suspicion of this happy windfall until the time should arrive. Neither your mother, nor your sister, nor your lover, knows or suspects anything about it.'
'Oh!' Elsie said once more. An interjection may be defined as a prolonged monosyllable, generally a vowel, uttered when no words can do justice to the subject.
'And here, my dear young lady'—Elsie cried 'Oh!' once more because—the most curious thing in the world—Mr. Dering's grave face suddenly relaxed and the lines assumed the very benevolence which she had the day before imparted to his portrait, and wished to see upon his face!—'Here, my dear young lady'—he laid his hand upon a paper—'is the list of the investments which I have made of that money. You have, in fact, money in Corporation bonds—Newcastle, Nottingham, Wolverhampton. You have water shares—you have gas shares—all good investments, yielding at the price of purchase an average of nearly three and two-thirds per cent.'
'Investments? Why—how much money was it, then? I was thinking when you spoke of a sum of money, of ten pounds, perhaps.'