"Then, Miss Seaham," Jane Marryott answered, sorrowfully, "if I speak plainly as you desire, I am forced to confess that all that I have heard of Mr. Eugene Trevor, makes me fear his being too like his father in disposition to make any lady happy." "Mr. Eugene Trevor cannot possibly be like his father," murmured Mary, her woman's faithfulness still rising up in her lover's defence. "God grant that it may not be so in every respect," resumed the other. "But, alas! it is written 'that the love of money is the root of all evil;' and what but the coveting of his father's riches, though it might be for a different purpose than the old gentleman's avariciousness--I mean the spending it on his own selfish pleasures--could have made him act in many respects as I have heard that he has done; though God forgive me for exposing the faults of a fellow-creature." "Speak on, I entreat," Mary anxiously exclaimed. "Well, Miss, I mean why did he not stand up, like his brother, for his injured, excellent mother; and if he did not exactly join hand in hand with those who oppressed her, why countenance her wrongs by their contented endurance? then about Mr. Eustace that true and noble-hearted gentleman?" "Ah! what of him?" Mary eagerly inquired, lifting up her sadly-drooping eyes, and fixing them upon Jane Marryott's face with an earnest, fearful expression. "He was treated shamefully by his father from a child," was the reply; "but I fear more badly still at last by his brother, if, indeed, it be true that he had any hand in the dark business, in which I am told he was mixed up." "What business?" inquired Mary, turning very pale.