"Mr. Hubbard," she said, in the same tone (and before the clear, cold, cruel notes of her voice the walls of his imaginative Jericho fell down and crumbled into dust), "I am much obliged to you and your wife for having employed me. I hope I did my work in return for the food I received. As to your kindness, and the pleasant evenings spent in your house, I have an impression which I need not put into words. You know I had a conversation with your brother before I left your house which seemed to explain your kindness to me. At the same time, I am as grateful to you as I can be." "That brother of mine again!" thought John Hubbard, with an inward groan. Mr. Cayley came into the room, and was surprised to find his partner there. "I wish to speak to you in private, sir," said Miss Brunel to Mr. Cayley; and thus dismissed, John Hubbard retired, thinking of the poor children who had been deprived of handsome little presents all through the blundering folly of their uncle. "Hang him!" said John Hubbard; "the best thing the fool can do is to shoot himself and leave his money to the boys. As for _her_, he has set her dead against me for ever. And now she will be Lady Annie Knottingley, and my wife might have been her best friend, and we might have lived, almost, at that splendid place in Berks—and the children——" There was no more miserable creature in London that day than the Count’s brother; and he considered himself an injured, ill-used, and virtuous man. The appearance of John Hubbard had done this one good thing—it had determined Annie Brunel to make up her mind. It recalled so forcibly the loneliness and misery, the humiliation and wretchedness of these past months, that she instantly resolved never, if she could help it, to come into contact with such people again. With this wealth at her command, she was free. She could choose such friends, and scenes, and pursuits as she liked best; she could—and here the warm heart of her leapt up with joy—she could reach out her hand to those friends who might be in want—she could be their secret protector, and glide in like an invisible fairy to scare away the wolf from their door by the sunshine of her gilded and luminous presence. This splendid potentiality she hugged to her heart with a great joy; and as she went away from Mr. Cayley’s office (after a long interview, in which he explained to her the legal aspects and requirements of the situation) there was a fine happy light on her face. She no longer doubted that it was all real. She already felt the tingling of a full hand; and her brain was busy with pictures of all the people to whom that hand was to be freely extended. In many a romance had she played; but never a romance like this, in which all the world but herself was ignorant of the secret. She would go about, like an emperor with a bundle of pardons in his pocket, like a kindly spirit who would transform the