But Mrs. Abercarne shook her head. Her daughter’s persuasions--perhaps the very novelty of her child’s trying to persuade seriously at all--were taking their effect upon her; but it was an effect which produced in the poor gentlewoman the most acute shame and misery. “What would Lord Llanfyllin say?” murmured she. “What could he say except that it was a good deal better to keep somebody else’s house, than to starve in one’s own?” retorted Chris, brightly. “And as he’s never seen me, or taken the slightest notice of you since poor papa died, we really needn’t trouble ourselves about him at all.” This was self-evident, but Mrs. Abercarne did not like to be reminded of the fact. Her cousin, by a remote cousinship, Lord Llanfyllin, had forgotten her very existence years ago; but in the most sacred recesses of her heart he still sat enthroned, symbol of all that was greatest and noblest in the land and of her connection with it. She liked to think that her actions mattered to him; and to be reminded of the fact that they did not, was eminently distasteful to her. The postman, soon after this, came to the aid of Chris and her arguments by bringing the usual batch of worrying letters with bills and threats. With a burst of tears Mrs. Abercarne gave way, and with her daughter’s soothing arms around her neck answered the loathsome advertisement with an eager hope in her heart that her letter would remain unnoticed by the advertiser. Poor lady! she was disappointed. Two days later she received an answer to her letter, written in the neat hand of a man of business, in the following words: “DEAR MADAM,--Please state terms and approximate age of self and daughter; also date when able to come. “Yours faithfully, “JOHN BRADFIELD.” Mrs. Abercarne felt stupefied, almost frightened. “You said most likely he’d not even answer!” she said, reproachfully, to her daughter. But Chris, who felt that the honour or the shame of this undertaking would devolve upon her, was full of excitement, and did not rest until she had hurried her mother into an answer intimating that they would be willing to become inmates of his house, and that Mrs. Abercarne would undertake the superintendence of his establishment for an honorarium of sixty pounds a year. “As for telling him my age, Christina,” went on the lady, haughtily, “that I certainly shall not do. I consider the request most impertinent, and it seems to me to prove conclusively that, however well off he may be, this Mr. John Bradfield is not a gentleman.” “Very well, mother; you didn’t need tell him your age; you can tell him mine. And then he can guess yours pretty nearly,” she added, with a mischievous laugh. “It looks rather as if we thought we were doing him a great favour by condescending to accept his money and live comfortably in his house, doesn’t it?” she said, when she had glanced through her mother’s letter.