Her face was very bright, but grave. She walked till the sun had set, watching the changing clouds and the gold on the river. On her way home, she paused a moment before each of the historic houses close at hand, and stood to look at the face of Thomas Carlyle, who had just been set up in effigy on the Embankment. At ten o’clock, when the sisters went up to bed, Ada knocked in her usual way at the door of Mr. Meres’ study. Mr. Meres was reading; he welcomed her with a smile. “Have you got Drummond’s poems?” she began by asking. “Drummond of Hawthornden? Alas, no!” “No matter. Mr. Vissian happened to mention him to me with some fervour.” She was silent for a little, seemingly thinking of another matter. Then she said: “Mr. Meres, I shall be one-and-twenty a fortnight to-day.” “I know it, Ada.” He watched her under his brows; she was smiling, with tremor of the lips. “I went down to look at my property,” were her next words. Mr. Meres made no answer. “You will never, I fear, be able to congratulate me.” He shifted on his chair, but still said nothing. “And if you do not, who will?” pursued the girl. “I am afraid I shall be very friendless. Do you think it will be worth while to have a London house as well as Knights-well?” “You will scarcely need one,” said the other, tapping his knee with a paper-knife, and speaking in rather a gruff voice. “Some people in my position,” Ada went on, “would half wish that such wealth had never come to trouble them. They might be tempted to say they would have nothing to do with it.” Mr. Meres raised his face. “And so give much trouble,” he remarked, in a tone of suppressed agitation. “A state of things would follow equivalent to intestacy. Ten to one there would be law-suits. The property would be broken up.” “Yes, I have thought of that,” Ada assented, looking up at the Madonna over the fireplace. “Still there would be a resource for such a person’s foolishness. There would be nothing to prevent him or her from giving it all away when once possessed of it.” “Nothing in the world,” said Mr. Meres, scarcely above a whisper. “Mr. Meres, will you help me to get that legally performed?” He half rose, his hands trembling on the arms of his chair. “Ada, you mean that?” “Yes, I mean it.” He caught her head between his hands, and kissed her several times on the forehead. “That’s my brave girl!” was all he could say. Then he sat down again in the utmost perturbation. He was completely unnerved, and had to press his hands upon his brows to try and recover calm. Ada kept her eyes upon Raphael’s Madonna. She could not see quite clearly, but the divine face was glowed around with halo, and seemed to smile. “I cannot be quite independent, you know,” she said at length. “For the present I must ask Mrs. Clarendon to give me just what I need to live upon--that, and no more. I shall be glad to do that. I had rather have it from her as a gift than keep a sum for myself.”