Cousin Henry

e In

ng lady, as the two were sitting in the breakfast parlour of a country house w

as my conscience is backed by my

that I shal

not mea

t th

ery strong is my inclination, or disinclin

t ne

conscience to see whether it be imperative with you or not. You may be sure of this,-I shall never say a

irl went in and out of the room and settled herself down at her work. Then the old ma

Indefer. What should a ma

will brea

no,

ill ru

can brave my ruin easily,

there be eit

our heart is dearer to me than anything else in the world,-could I marry my cousin Henry. We must die together, both of

to thi

old house. Shall I be less tender to you while you live because I shall have to leave the place when you are dead? Shall I accuse you of injustice or unkindness in my

ich he did seated in the same room, at the same hour of the day,

aid, "I cannot

ng in which his age had wanted assistance from her youth there would have been no hesitation between them; no daughter was ever more tende

cousin and t

ooking for help where there is none to be had. You mean

to go to

s, nor likely to

to me as he is,-a

k. A woman not born to be a Jones may have the luck to beco

augh at that whic

rtainly had laughed when she spoke of the luck of becoming a Jones-"it is only

ortant,-terrib

Llanfeare to your nephew Henry Jones, and the other that I will not marry your nephew Henry Jones

sh it

it would save

In getting back the land your grandfather so

nking that the old family place shall remain as you would have i

are a straw f

family to sympathise with you altogether in what you are doing, but not enough

you should think so

an should be able to love every little trick belonging to him. The parings of his nails should be a care to her. It

s full of poet

Indefer. Get it out of your mind as a thing quite impossible. It is the one thing I can't and won't do, even for

not as

, which is the only little thing that I have in the w

he be enabled to be so also to her in his determination, with less of pain to himself. She felt it to be her duty to teach him that he was justified in doing what he liked with his property, because she intended to do what she liked with her

thout issue. Then there had been a Henry Jones, who had gone away and married, had become the father of the Henry Jones above mentioned, and had then also departed. The youngest, a daughter, had married an attorney named Brodrick, and she also had died, having no other child but Isabel. Mr Brodrick had married again, and was now the father of a large

the former old man having been given to extravagance, and been generally in want of money, had felt it more comfortable to be without an entail. His son had occasionally been induced to join with him in raising money. Thus not only since he had himself owned the estate, but before his father's death, there had been forced upon him reflections as to the destination of Llanfeare. At fifty he had found himself unmarried, and unlikely to marry. His brother Henry was then alive; but Henry had disgraced the family,-had run away with a married woman whom he had married after a divorce, had taken to race courses and billiard-roo

hing. At this time the cousin had been taken into an office in London, and had become,-so it was said of him,-a steady young man of business. But still, when allowed to show himself at Llanfeare, he was unpalatable to them all-unless it might be to

our. This remained in existence as his last resolution for three years; but they had been three years of misery to him. He had endured but badly the idea that the place should pass away out of what he regarded as the proper male line. To his thinking it was simply an accident that the power of disposing of the property should be in his hands. It was a religion to him that a landed es

rty which his father, with his assistance, had sold. The loss of these acres had been always a sore wound to him, not because of his lessened income, but from a feeling that no owner of an estate should allow it to be diminished during his holding of it. He never saw those separated fields estranged from Llanfeare, but he grieved in his heart. That he might get t

n to ask himself why all his dearest wishes should not be carried out together by a marriage between the cousins. "I don't care a bit for his wild oats," Isabel had said, almost playfully, when the idea had first been mooted to

lways quite determined in her own ideas of wrong or right. He had in truth been all but afraid of her when he found himself compelled to tell her of the decision to which his conscience compelled him. But the will was made,-the third, perhaps the fourth or fifth, which had seemed to him to be necessary since his mind had been exercised in this matter. H

e said to her about a fortnight af

y t

ll be so little now for you, that we

e!" said Isab

, live for two years, and we may save six or seven hundred a year. I have put a charge on the estate fo

for the last twenty years, and it would crush me if I were to see a change. You have done the best you can, and now le