‘No, I do not think I have; but you must not look so sorry--I am not sorry for myself. What does it matter after all?’ said Anne, raising her head with that lofty visionary defiance of all evil. ‘There are things which one could not consent to lose--which it really breaks one’s heart to lose--which would need to be torn and wrenched out of one: you know, Mr. Loseby?--but not money; how different when it is only money! The mere idea that you might lose the one makes you feel what loss would be, makes you contemptuous of the other.’ ‘I know?--do you think I know?--Indeed, my dear, I cannot tell,’ said Mr. Loseby, shaking his head. ‘If I lost what I have, I should not find it at all easy to console myself. I don’t think I should be contemptuous or indifferent if all my living were to go.’ ‘Ah!’ she cried, with a sudden light of compunction and pity in her eyes, ‘but that is because you---- Oh, forgive me!’ with a sudden perception of what she was saying. ‘That is because I have not much else to lose?’ said the old lawyer. ‘Don’t be sorry for saying it, it is true. I lost all I had in that way, my dear, as you know, many many years ago. Life, to be sure, has changed very much since then, but I am not unhappy. I have learnt to be content; and it would make a great difference to me if I lost what I have to live upon. Anne, I have got something to tell you which I think will make you happier.’ She looked at him eagerly with her lips apart, her eyes full of beseeching earnestness. ‘It is about your father, Anne.’ Her countenance changed a little, but kept its eagerness. She had not expected anything to make her happier from that quarter; but she was almost more anxious than before to hear what it was. ‘Your cousin has been telling me--you heard his proposal about the entail, which, alas! no time was left us to discuss?--he thinks from what your father said to him,’ said the lawyer, leaning across the table and putting his hand upon hers, ‘that he meant to have arranged this according to Heathcote Mountford’s wishes, and to have settled Mount on you.’ Anne could not speak at first. The tears that had been gathering in her eyes overflowed and fell in a warm shower upon Mr. Loseby’s hand. ‘My cousin Heathcote told you this?’ she said, half sobbing, after a pause. ‘Yes, Anne. I thought it would please you to know.’ ‘Please me!’ she made a little pause again, sobbing and smiling. Then she clasped his old hand in both hers with sudden enthusiasm. ‘It makes me perfectly happy!’ she cried: ‘nothing, nothing troubles me any more.’