The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-09-04 00:00:00

BY THE AUTHOR OF

4. Allan Thornton," "EP Baird," "Almost 4

Criminal," " Leonora's
.Legacy," c.

CHAPTER XXVII.
COUNTING HER POSSBSSIONS •
Gold, gold, gold, gold—
Good or bad, a thousand fold—
How widely its agencies vary;
To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,
As even its minted coins express—
Now stamped with the image of good Queen
Bess,
And now of a bloody Mary. —Hoon.

BBEYL let Patty brush out her hair and remove her
•dress almost in silence. She could not talk; she
wanted to be alone to think, and hardly said a word
toher little maid till she was in bed, and wished her
good night with her head on her pillow. She was at
home at last at Atherstono Grange changed—as if by
a fairy touch—from a hard-working actress, whose
life was a struggle for daily bread, to the mistress of
wealth such as she had never imagined; a very queen,
at whose bidding the Grange itself would have cdThe
down had she so willed it.
She lay there thinking, her eyes wide open in die
semi-gloom, with every different expression in them
to any she used to wear in the old Melbourne days,
Prosperity had changed her, and not for the better,
since she had hung broken-hearted over her mother's
death-bed, and exchanged vows of constancy with the
who was praying nightly for her safety on the man
ether side of the world.
She was not even thinking of him on this first
night in her new home. Her thoughts were entirely
of money, and the position she had come home to
claim; and they were curious thoughts for a young
girl.
"Money, jewels, and a name no one can take away
from me"—so ran her reflections. "Jam Beryl Ather-
stone, of the Grange, with thousands lying ready to
my hands, that I can use at any time. The jewels are
here in the house—Mrs. Atherstone told me that much
in her gossip; and the name is a tower of strength.
I am safe here—safe; no one can take my grand-
father's name and possessions from me."
And she fell asleep, to dream a curious medley of
her former life: Airs. Dalton, her voyage, and the
strange death and ocean burial of Ursula Rhodes, and
.she awoke with a start and a scream, for it seemed to
her that the dead girl suddenly stood beside her, and
with pointing finger and menacing eyes, bade her
"beware."
"Beware of what e she said to herself, when the
sick shiver consequent on the start and terror
had passed away. "Who or what am Ito
beware of? Ah. it was a morning dream,"
she added, as the sunlight made her open her eyes,
and the twittering of the birds under her window
broke upon her ears; "and they always go by
contraries. Ursula Rhodes cannot harm me now—she
never eculd, for the matter of that. I have left all
my mores behind me in Australia, and I am safe—safe
-and free."

She looked like a fairy vision of loveliness as she
descended to the breakfast room in a white dress with
black ribbons, and her hair hanging unconfined, save
save by a single jet comb.
"You must tell me if I put on anything outre,
-auntie," she said, as she took her seat. "We always
wear white in Australia in hot weather; but Mrs.
Dalton said it would look particular in England."
"A young girl may wear white anywhere, my
-dear," returned Mrs. Atherstone, kissing her. "You
look like a sweet fresh flower. However, ycu will
want more elaborate dresses, and Elise will see to all
that when she comes."
"But will this do to go and talk to Mr. Carson in?
I have always heard people dressed for everything in
England."
"My dear child, what extraordinary notions you
seem to have picked up in that outlandish country.
Do! Of course it will; we do not spend all our time
at our toilets here. Get your breakfast. I'm going
to send Mr. Carson's up to him. Poor old gentleman ;
lie's more affected than he is willing to show, at the
clarions disappearance of his son."
"And Lilly, aunt—poor Lilly !—how is she ?"
"Lily has a head-ache, and no wonder; she cried
herself to sleep, poor child! This her first sorrow,
Beryl. If she seems irritable or stupid, you will bear
with her, will you not ?"
"Bear with her, auntie! Oh, auntie, I will do all I
13an to cheer and console her, poor darling !" said Beryl,
with tears in her eyes. "I feel, when I think of it, as
though I had done something to take her lover away
from her. He was a nice young man, was Mr. Carson
—so attentive and kind to me."
"He was kind and attentive to everyone. He was
a universal favourite. I cannot think anything has
happened to him; Providence would not be so cruel."
"I have thought about it till it seems as though I
could think no longer," Beryl said, sadly. "All through
-that long, dreary voyage I used to think I should go
mad. Ali, it was horrible !"
"Don't talk about it any more, child—run away to
Mr. Carson, in the library, and hear all about your
riches. You don't know half the wonderful -things
you are mistress of yet."
Beryl went, looking wondrously at the grand old
room, which had been the old squire's favourite apart-
ment, and about which a trace of his presence seemed
linger. Shabby and musty, Mrs. Atherstone had
called the house, but it seemed to its young possessor
the very acme of magnificence. The library had deep
windows, with crimsom curtains; of soft heavy silk,
trimmed with a cord of black and gold, and looped
up with tassels of the same, and between the windows
were moveable cases of books, making every
embrasure a snug recess, wherein were cushioned seats
-and little tables, where a book might be enjoyed, or a
dreamy outlook over the prettiest view in the county
indulged in. The writing-table, par excellence, was at
one end of the room, near the large tiled hearth, for
the squire would not have a coal grate in his pet
room, and burnt logs of wood, supported by pic-
turesque dogs of polished steel. The carpet was con-
siderably worn, but it was splendid, even in its decay.
It was crimson, matching the curtains, with a cord of
gold woven into it looking as though it had been flung
down in careless coils, and had been a fancy of Beryl's
father when quite a lad.
"Let us do up the library, dad," he had said one day,
when that apartment was growing musty and grim;
and the squire had assented, and amused himself by
listening to the boy's suegestions and sober advice as
to what was to be done; but the suggestions were in
perfect taste and the advice was good, and Pierce
Atherstone adopted both, and refurnished his library
as the boy pleased, to be ever afterwards reminded of
his discarded son when he sat in the room his taste
had made so worthy of his old home.
Beryl looked like the spirit of some dead and gone
Atherstone come to take possession, as she tripped up
the old room, adorned with portraits of her ancestors,
and stood before Mr. Carson.
There were portentous-looking bundles of papers
before him, and he looked up from them with a smile
and a sigh to greet her. There was something sad in
thus going over the writing of the dead—it seemed to
bring the end of all things nearer to him somehow.
"Good morning, my dear," he said, in answer to her
salutation. "I beg your pardon. I should say Miss
Atherstone, but—"
"Oh, don't be ceremonious with me," said Beryl.
." I have not many friends, you know. Call me Beryl,
or anything you please ."
"That would hardly do, I think." he replied, with
a smile. "However, perhaps I may venture on my
-dear,' if you don't mind. It comes natural from an old
man to so young a lady as yourself."
He placed a chair for her, and began his task of ex-
plaining to her all about the inheritance which had
so suddenly 'come to her, and was agreeably surprised
to find how few frivolous girlish questions she asked,
-and how practical her knowledge of money matters
seemed to be. It was buisness-like and alert; but
he was a little puzzled by one or two things. She
showed a curious eagerness for a young girl, to know
exactly where her money was, and how it was to be
come by, and the exact amount of her possessions in
every way. She did not seem so inquisitive about
her rent-roll—the farms and lands which went to make
up the Grange estate—as about the money out on
mortgage, and the surplus funds lying to her credit at
the bank. Mr. Carson was disappointed in her over
the morning's conversation. He thought he saw
glimpses of a hard, grasping nature in her. All the
pretty light died out of her eyes when she talked of
money, and the very worst expression of the old
squire's face came into them.
"And they said she was such a gentle, innocent
creature," he said to himself. "I doubt the actress
-vice is strong within her, and she can be, all things to
all men,' as the Apostle Paul says. I begyour pardon,
Miss Atherstone," he addeu aloud, for Beryl had spoken
unheeded for the moment..
"I was only saying I hope you won't set me down
as loving money very dearly for its own sake," she
said, with her most winning smile. "I only want to
know, as the man-in Little Dorrit Says.' Chap 27
"And it is very right you should, my dear."
"Of course, I am not likely to want any money, at
least in such sums as you have been talking about;
they seem perfectly fabulous to me alter the poverty
I have known, and I'm sure I shan't know what to do
with a quarter of them."
"I think you'll find a way to spend them," he
said, smiling, and beginning to think he had judged
her harshly.
"I want to spend some this very minute?
"How?"
• • "Will you let me?"
"Let you! My dear young lady, you are of
age; you are undisputed possessor of everything
here, and you can let yourself do whatever you
please."
"And a nice muddle I should make of things
• without someone to advise me. You will help
me, will you not? I should like things to go on
just as my grandfather arranged them; nothing could
be better than your arrangement, I am sure."
• '(You are very kind to think so, my dear. But
where did you get your good opinion of me ?"
"From—from your son, Mr. Carson," Beryl said,
'with tears in her eyes. "I know it by the way he
spoke of you. Oh. forgive me if I have pained you !"

7,6421.1.aieti

The lawyer turned his head away to hide his quiver-
ing lips; the mere mention of his son sent a pang to
his heart.

"Never mind, my dear; never mind. Let us
go back to businese. How much money do you
want ?"
"I don't know."
Will it be too much presumption—may I ask if it
is for any special purpose? For your own private ex-
penditure here is your cheque book," and he pushed
one across the
,f.s43le as he spoke. "If it is any-
thing you want help in, you have only to say the
word."

"Your help is just what I want. I want to do two
things at once."
"One at a time. What is the first?"

"I want to do something for my uncle—no, my
cousin," she said, correcting herself with a laugh;
"that is the relationship, I believe."

"Mr. Norton Atherst-one ?"

• " Yes ; you see, if my grandfather had signed that
will I have heard of, I should have been a poor,
penniless orphan, with no one in the world to care for
me, and he would have been now the head of the
family, and the master of this house. Perhaps it
would have been better so—who knows? Anyway, I
should like to do something that would not hurt his
feelings or wound the Atherstone pride, and yet
which would be of substantial benefit to him and his
family. He is not rich, is he?"
"By no means. Your thought does you credit, my
dear young lady. Ido know something you could do,
but it would be at a great cost."
"How much ?"
"More than two thousand pounds—Dearer three,
should say."
"And I have how much lying unemployed ?"
• Over twenty thourband:
"It shall be done, Mr. Carson, if money can do it.

_
Why, I have taken all from him—it will be hard if
I cannot give him so much. What is it you think he
would like?"

"The house he lives in and the land belonging to

"But is it not the rectory? I thought he was the
clergyman of the parish."
"So he is ; and all the folks hereabout call his house
the rectory; but it is not really so. The rectory
proper is a tumble-down, inconvenient little house, at
present inhabited by Mr. Atherstone's curate. This
house is properly called the Glebe, and the dearest
wish of his heart is to possess it. I know how long
and how often he has striven to buy it, but his family
is expensive, and it has never come about. He has
money laid by, but he will not take from his younger
child to make a purchase which can only descend to
one."

"It shall be made for him. Will you see about it
at once, Mr. Carson?"

"Had you not better consider—take two or three
days to think about it."
"Such a thing needs no consideration," said Beryl,
impetuously. "Am I not in his place? I stand
between him and wealth; and see how they treat
me! As if I were a cherished child, and not an in-
terloper. Mr. Carson, let me have the title deeds of
the Glebe, as soon as money can buy them, if you
please."
"You shall be obeyed," said the lawyer, with a
smile, "because I think you are right in this
matter."

" And you will keep the secret ?"
"Trust me; not a soul shall know until you
choose."

"And that won't be till I put the papers into my
cousin's hands, and tell him that the Glebe is his own
property. You must make haste, please, Mr. Carson.
I feel as though I should never sleep till I knew it was
done."

"Oh, yes, you will. Consider it done, as it is now
in intention, and your goodwill to it will ensure you
a good night's rest. Now, about the other matter.
Have you anyone else you wish to endow with house
and land ?"

"No, but money. Can money be sent by tele-
gram ?"
"Not as a Post Office matter. One bank can tele-
graph to another bank to pay money, and private in-
dividuals can do the same thing. Who do want to
send au to ?" . .

_
"Mrs. Dalton. You have heard of her. She is the
person my mother and I lodged with in Melbourne.
Mamma died in her house."

"I have heard of her."
"It was her youngest daughter who left Melbourne
with me, and who died at sea."
"I understand. You wish to do something to help
her."

"Yes. She was very kind to me—more kind than
I can tell you; and I took poor Ursula away from her,
and left her buried in the deep sea. She is old and
alone, and all her prospects in life are ruined by Ursula's
death."
" How so ?"

. _
" I don't know that I could make you understand.
I am not quite clear what their plans were, but I know
that Mrs. Dalton was to have joined Ursula in
England after a very little while, and they were going
to stay here. I should like her to come here to the
Grange, and live with me."

"Come here 1"

"Oh, that requires more consideration than the
other scheme. Of course, you can do for her what-
ever you like,but I think, if I were you, I would con-
sult Mrs. Atherstone before I decided upon such a
step. A Melbourne lodging-house keeper might not
be quite the best companion for the mistress of Ather-
stone Grange, unless, indeed, you propose to em-
ploy the old lady in any capacity here."
"Employ her; make a servant of Mrs. Dalton !"
said Beryl, with a laugh, though there was a hot flush
on her face. "You do not know her, Mr. Carson, or
you would not talk like that. Why, she has the
manners of a duchess, and the look of a queen. She
would grace any society."
"I do not doubt it since you say so; still I think it
would be better to wait."
"I am in no hurry to decide," said Beryl coldly,
"so that I can send her something in the mean-
time." _ _

"You can do that easily. Your bankers have
agents out there. I believe they are continually
transacting business by telegram. How much would
you like to send the old lady ?"
He looked up as if expecting some hesitation, but
Beryl had her answer ready.
"I should like to send Mrs. Dalton £500," she
said.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
A BABY'S PORTRAIT.
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant
Let the dead past bury its dead.
—LONOFILLOW.
MR. CARSON looked at Beryl in some surprise.
"£5OO !" he repeated, doubting whether he had
heard her aright.

"Yes."
"But that's a large sum, my dear, a very large suni
and " _ .

A haughty look came into the girl's face— a look
that made her wonderfully like the old squire in his
hardest moments. It seemed to say that, like him,
she would brook no interferencein anything she chose
to do.
"Have I as much money at my command ?" sue
asked haughtily. "Can I afford it ?"
"Afford £5OO !" the lawyer said, with a smile.
"£5OOO, if you like. That is not the question."

" Then we need not discuss the matter further.
Will you see that itis paid to Mrs. Dalton at once, and
in my name, please?"

Mr. Carson bowed.
"It shall be done at once," he said, without furthcr
comment.

"Don't be angry with me," Beryl said, laying her
hand on his arm. "I am not going to be too ex-
travagant. or to act for myself in any other matters
without your advice; but I must send this money.'
"Mrs. Dalton shall have it within a week; but why
must, Miss Atherstone ?"
"Well, 'must' was a strong word to use, perhaps,"
Beryl said, with a short laugh; "but I feel more
strongly than I can tell you about this matter. Mrs.
Dalton has lost through me what nothing that I nor
anyone in the world can replace for her—her grand-
child, the stay and comfort of her old age. If I were
to give her the Grange and all that I have come
here to claim, it would not repay her for Ursula's
death."

"I think you are over-sensitive in the matter, my
dear," said Mr. Carson, "and that you let your
generous feeling be too easily wrought on. I don't
want to make light of the matter, heaven knows. Death
is terrible in any shape—doubly so when it comes
suddenly like that. But you could not help it. The
poor girl's sad end was your misfortune, not your
fault."

"I can't help feeling to blame. I was too glad to
have her. I should not have let her come with me. It
will be some satisfaction to me to try and help the
poor old lady. I know she has a struggle to get on,
and she has no one to assist her to bear the burden
now."
"And you are going to help her right royally. She
shall have the money within a week. As to the other
matter, of course you will do as you please; but I
think it would be well to reflect upon it, and consult
Mrs. Atherstone. You will not find her obtrusive or
interfering with her advice; but at the same time
she is the clearest-headed and most practical woman I
know."
"I'm afraid I shan't think long over it," said Beryl,
with a smile. "I think I must be very impetuous
and self-willed, and when I make up my mind to a
thing, I like to do it at once. Besides, Mrs. Dalton
knew my grandfather once, she says."

"Indeed!"
Mr. Carson's interest was aroused, and he looked
keenly at the heiress. '
"Do you know what her name was ?" ho asked,
"and what her first name is ?"
Time was no answer in Beryl's eyes, and rather
a hard expression on her face as she answered
him. _ . _

"My mother and I were only lodgers in Mrs. Dalton's
house, Mr. Carson, and were hardly in her confidence.
I am not sure that I ever heard her name; but I
gathered from several things we heard and mliced
that she was an Englishwoman. My grandfather
must have known her when he was a young man, for
I know she had been abroad a good many years,
without even visiting England."
"A foreigner, and an acquaintance of the squire's,"
thought Mr. Carson to himself. "Can it be possible
that it is Angela Delphini that this girl wants to

befriend? Bah! The very thought would make the
old man turn in his grave. I'm growing doting in my
old days. That actress must be dead and buried
Mg ago. She wasn't the woman to remain quiet all
these years while Pierce Atherstone was alive and had
money to spend."
Aloud he only said:
" I don't remember the name of Dalton in any papers
of your grandfather's, Miss Atherstone, but there are
many old letters of his in that old cabinet which will
need looking over and destroying. You may, perhaps,
find something in them about his early days and his
friends."

"I should think he was a good friend to the old lady
at some time. I remember she said to mamma that
'any kindred of Pierce A therstone ought to be welcome
in her house,' or something of that sort; but we
didn't take much 7 otice of it at the time. May Igo
over my grandfatner's papers myself, Mr. Carson ?"
"They are yours now, my dear, to do what you will
with. You will find it a very uninteresting and
tedious business, I am afraid."
"No, I shan't. I know so little of my family that
I shall like to read anything that concerns them. Are
they in tremendous confusion ?" . . .

". No ; quite the contrary. The squire was most
most methodical and precise over his papers. Every-
thing is tied up and docketted."
"Then will you leave me alone with them, and let
Mrs. Atherstone know that I would rather stay here
than go down ?"
"I'm afraid you'll soon tire of the job."
"No, I shan't. It will be far more interesting to
me than discussing frills and furbelows with my
cousins, and receiving callers in the drawing-room.
They know I am engaged, and will think nothing of
my taking another hour. I shall be glad to forget
that lam Miss Atherstone of the Grange for a little
while, and lose myself in these old papers."
Mr. Carson made no more objections, and Beryl
pulled open the door of the ,)1d cabinet, at which her
grandfather used to sit and write, and began to ex-
amine the piles of papers therein. There were many
bundles—some yellow with age, and some fresh, and
she turned to the old ones first. It was a curious oc-
cupation to interest a bright young girl, this peeping
into the records of the dead, and Mr. Carson watched
her now and then with interest from the far-off table
where he sat writing. A strange history those neatly
arranged papers had to tell of the hopes and fears,
joys and sorrows, of so many years ago, and Beryl
became quite absorbed in their perusal. Once she
uttered a slight scream, and Mr. Carson left his seat
and came to her side.

"What is it ?" he asked. "Have you hurt your-
self?" _

_
"A little. I have pinched my thumb, sir."
She showed him a purple mark on her white thumb,
where she had, as she said, pinched it somewhat
severely.
"flow did you do that, Miss Atherstone?"
"Opening this little door. I didn't know there
was one here, and when I touched the shelf below it,
it fell out, and the spring rapped me, that's all. I
think I have stumbled upon some love-letters, Mr.
Mr. Carson."
"Love letters !"

"I think so. Look here. Letters and faded
flowers, all folded up in tissue paper, and tied up in
blue ribbon. I thought my grandfather was such a
cold, matter-of-fact man."
"So he was—latterly, at any rate. I suppose in
his youth he was, like other men, susceptible."
"I think he must have been a very sentimental
person indeed," said Beryl, smiling. "Look here,
Mr. Carson; these must be my grandmother's
letters."
They were, indeed, as the young girl had said, love
letters—faded things with no life in them now to tell
of the heart-voices with which they had spoken so
many years ago. The ink on the yellow paper was
almost illegible now, and the edges were frayed and
worn, as though the squire had been in the
habit of reading them frequently as, indeed,
he had, when he was alone, with no chance of inter-
ruption. They were labelled, in Pierce Atherstone's
own writing, "From my beloved Margaret," and had
been put in their hiding-place only a few days after
Mrs. Atherstone's death. She little knew how much
she was loved, poor lady! and the worthy gossips
who declared that the squire's coldness and indif-
ference had worried her to death, did not quite know
Pierce Atherstone.

"They were in this little recess," said Beryl. "I
was quite startled when the panel fell out. Don't
imagine I am a nervous young lady, and scream
at everything. I suspect lam a little over-excited
just now."
Beryl did not tell all the truth; the falling down of
the panel had startled her a little, but she had got
over that, and the pinching of her thumb also, without
any exclamation. It was something that lay there
with the letters which had discomposed her far more
than the trifling accident. She had thrust it hastily
into her pocket, before Mr. Carson had time to reach
her side; and, as it was something of the existence of
which he was ignorant, he suspected nothing. Hs
left her presently, and she went on with her search
till it was nearly time for the dressing bell to ring, and
then she went to her room with a bundle of letters in
her hand. Patty was not in the dressing-room, and
she locked the door and sat down at her dressing.
table with the packet and the letters spread open
before her.
My portrait," she murmured, "taken when I was
a baby, and like me even now. 1 wonder what
made the old man keep that? I declare it is very
pretty."
It was the portrait Leonard Atherstone had sent to
his father so many years before of his baby daughter,
and was as fresh now as when it left the painter's
hands. The baby head was covered with rings of
golden hair, and the soft brown eyes that had been
such a beauty in Beryl Joyce—the eyes that had lured
Leonard Atherstone to forget all else for their sweet
witchery looked out from the senseless ivory with so
much of life, that Beryl uttered a wondering
murmur.

"It's fearfully likE; me," she murmured, "and yet I
could never have been sucha simpering little
_imp as

that. I must, surely, have had a-little—morechar;eter
in my face, even as a baby. I don't think I'll keep
it. A grinning baby in a coral necklace isn't a
particularly pleasant souvenir, and nobody here ever
saw me wnen I looked like that."

Beryl was changed with her prosperity. No
reverence for her dead mother, nor the father who
had so sadly and so lovingly begged that the little
memento should not be destroyed, prevented her
from resolving to get rid of it. It was wrapped in
the fragment of the letter which had accompanied it,
and a little curl of sunny hair was with it.
Beryl took the silky ring, and laid it against her
own soft ringlets.
"Hair does change so," she muttered. "No one
would ever think that grew on my head ;" and then
she deliberately lit a match and burned the morsel in
the fire-place. Then she looked in the glass long and
earnestly.
"I am very like my father now," she said to her-
self; "a good deal more like than it seemed possible
for me to grown then. No one would doubt my
identity I think, and that's a comfortable conviction
when one comes unknown into a nest of relations
from the other side of the world."
She rubbed her fingers over the delicate ivory till the
baby face was all blurred and blotted out; and then
she cut the thin ivory into tiny morsels and burnt
the bit of writing that Pierce Atherstone had kept so
long.
There was a cold, cruel look upon her pretty face
while she did this that robbed it of all its loveliness,
and made her look very unlike the Beryl Atherstone
of a few months back, before the thought of money
and its worth had made such a change in her life.
She was just getting rid of the last traces of the
destruction she had effected, when Patty knocked at
the door, and told her. she had not much time to
dress. She let the girl in with a smile on her face, and
the old simple, loving look came back to it, and
suffered herself to be dressed for dinner, and praised
her little maid's handiness in a way that won Patty's
heart more than ever.
Beryl spent a very pleasant evening with her friends
and cousins from the Glebe, and was all smiles and
radiance, though she was longing in her heart to get
away and read the packet of letters she had taken up
to her room. There was no time for that—they must
remain there, securely locked up, for the present, for
when she retired for the night she intended to write
a long letter to Mrs. Dalton.
Her new-found friends and the guests who had
been invited to this second evening's gathering
at the Grange were more than ever charmed
by Beryl's brilliance and flow of conversation.
She was well-informed and refined beyond their hopes,
and seemed quite at home on any subject that was
spoken of. The prejudice against her mother's pro-
fession was decidedly lessened when the Atherstone
family found what manner of girl this child of an
actress-mother proved to be. Beryl might have been
the daughter of a duchess, as far as breeding and
manners were concerned.
During the evening Mrs. Atherstone told her of
the plans they had been making for her, subject to
her approval.
"I think it would be well for you to travel about a
little, my dear," she said.
"I should like that, auntie. Where to? On the
Continent ?"
"Well, England first, my child," Mrs. Atherstone
replied. "We thought you would like to see all the
places you knew when you were a little girl, and some
of the people, too, if we can find them.
A look of disappointment, almost of terror, came
into Beryl's face.
"Oh, no," she said, with lips that quivered, in spite
of herself; "I shouldn't like that.'
II" Why not, my love? I think if I were in your
place it would be the very thing I should like."
"No, you wouldn't, auntie; I haven't forgotten those
times. I can remember my dear, dear father, with
his pale face and big mournful eyes; I recollect my
mother's grief, and the bitter, grinding poverty of
those dreadful days. I have never forgotten what
the doctor said when my father died, that it was want
that had helped to kill him, and I feel as though I
never wanted to visit a place or see a face again
that could bring back the memory of those direful
times.
"My dear Beryl, I had no idea you felt all this so
deeply. I never dreamed it had sunk so deeply into
your heart; forgive me," for Beryl's head was bowed
between her hands now, and she wept quietly without
any show of emotion. "I thought you were too
young to remember all this."

"Too young !" said the girl, with the slightest
shade of bitterness in her voice. "I was not too
young to be working, auntie; I was earning my own
living then and helping poor papa."
Mrs. Atherstone was dismayed at the effect of her
speech, and was trying to apologise when her son
came to the rescue."

You've got upon a gruesome subject, mamma,
aear," he said," we want Beryl to think about something
else and forget those times of trouble. I don't mean
forget your father, of course, dear," he said, seeing the
tears gather again in his cousin's eyes, "but all those
disagreeable events that happened in your pinafore
days. Let us talk about something else. How did
you come by your quaint-sounding name? It sounds
like a chapter out of the Book of Revelations, about
the gates of the wonderful city, or a page of the
"Arabian Nights." Who gave you that name, Miss
Atherstone?"

"My godfathers and godmother at my baptism,"
replied Beryl, with a demure look which made the
young man laugh; "but who the people were who
promised and vowed for me on that auspicious oc-
casion I have not the remotest idea. As to the name,
it is mine by inheritance ; it was my mother's and her
mother's, or rather foster-mother's, before her."
And who was she ?'' enquired Noel, in a sudden
tit of curiosity, adding, immediately, "I beg your
pardon; perhaps I should not have asked."
"Oh yes, my mother was a foundling," said Beryl,
simply. "Mr. Whiffin and his wife picked her up
under a hedge, and called her Beryl, after Mrs. Whiffin.
I don't think the Whiffin pedigree dates very far back;
I don't think Mr. Whiffin ever had a grandfather, and
Mrs. Whiffin was a parish orphan, apprenticed to an
acrobat."

" Ugh ! how horrible !" exclaimed Mrs Atherstone,
with a grimace. "Were they very dreadful people,
my dear ?"
"Not at all, auntie. I don't remember Mrs. Whiffin,
but her husband was, poor man, ma's best friend, and
very kind to me. lam sure she must have been a
good woman from the way he used to talk about her.
He was never tired of telling me how and when he
first saw her."

"And where was that, if we may be permitted to
ask?" said Noel. "The Whiffin biography is interest-
ing, little cousin."
Beryl looked up with an arch glance, but her tone
was very demure indeed.
"Standing on one leg on the top of a pole in the midst
of a blaze of fireworks," she said. "Mr. Whiffin used to
say she looked 'evenly."
There was a general laugh, and Noel drew his cousin
away from the rest of the group.
"I have something to show you," he said, "by
express permission of your lawyer, Miss Ather-
stone."
"To show me r
"Yes."
"What is it?"

"The family jewels—your diamonds—thpy have
been cleaned, but not reset—that operation waits
your pleasure. They have just arrived from town
and are set out for your inspection in the library. I
begged for the privilege of being the first to show
them to you. Will you come, or are you already blasé
of so much riches?"

"In eight-and-forty hours ?" she said,with a laugh.
" No, cousin Noel, I am not blase, but slightly
bewildered. It must be a dream, and I shall wake in
the theatre at Melbourne with the call boy shouting,
Overture, ladies,' outside my dressing-room door."
"Come and see the jewels," said Noel; "they will
make you feel the reality of everything. You'll make
a sensation in them, Beryl; the Atherstone diamonds
are things of mark in the jeweller's world, I can tell
you."