"Listen," said Miss Upton. "We three girls--you know whom I mean--were the only relatives Sir Francis Netherleigh had in the world. The other two married; I was left; and, after my mother's death, I came to live here. One day, during his fatal illness--it was the very last day he ever came downstairs--he bade me put aside my work and listen to him. It was a lovely summer afternoon, and we were sitting in the blue drawing-room, at the open window, he in his easy-chair. Uncle Francis--as we three girls had always called him, though, as you know, he was no uncle of ours--began speaking to me for the first time of his approaching death. I burst into tears, and that did not please him: he could be impatient at times. 'I want you to listen to me rationally, not to cry,' he said; 'and you must have known for some time that I was going.' So I dried my tears as well as I could, and he went on to tell me that it was I who would succeed to Court Netherleigh. I was indeed surprised! I could not believe it; just as you did not believe me now, when I told you I had bequeathed it to Francis Grubb; and I said something about not taking it--that _I_ was not of sufficient consequence to be the mistress of Court Netherleigh. That put him out--little things had done so of late--and he testily asked me who else there was to take it. 'I have neither son nor nephew, more's the pity,' he went on, 'no relative of any kind, except you three girls. Had Catherine Grant not married she would have had Court Netherleigh,' he continued, 'but she put herself beyond the pale of society. Betsy Cleveland has done the same; and there is only you.' He then passed on to say how he should wish the place to be kept up. 'And to whom am I to leave it?' I said to him in turn, feeling greatly perplexed; 'I shall not know what to do with it.' 'That is chiefly what I want to talk to you about,' he answered. 'Perhaps you will marry, and have a son----' 'No; I shall never marry--never!' I interrupted. For I had had my little romance in early life," broke off Miss Upton, looking at the Rector, "and that kind of thing had closed for me. You have heard something of it, I fancy?" Mr. Cleveland nodded: and she resumed.