About this time, too, a Miss Dean, from the village, who had evinced quite a liking for me, told me, confidentially, that Mr. Delafield and Ada were certainly engaged; adding, that “it was sometimes sickening to see them together”—a fact I could not doubt, knowing him as I did, and remembering Ada’s demeanor towards Herbert when they were engaged. From the same source, too, I learned that Mr. Montrose and the elder Mr. Delafield had been warm friends; and that the latter, who died when both Mrs. Lansing and Richard were quite young, had committed them to the care of Mr. Montrose, who was to them the kindest of fathers until the time of his death, which occurred a few years after Mrs. Lansing’s marriage, when Richard was just of age. To _his_ guardianship, therefore, as to that of a brother, had Mr. Montrose left his daughter, then a beautiful girl of seventeen; and since that time she had lived with Mrs. Lansing, who, though she appeared to love the young orphan, still opposed her marriage with her brother; not from any aversion to Ada, but because she did not wish Richard to marry at all, as in case he did not, his property would, in all probability, fall to her children, she being the only heir. When I asked her why Mr. Delafield was worth so much more than Mrs. Lansing, she replied, that the elder Mr. Delafield, in his will, had left two-thirds of his property to his son, bequeathing the other third to his daughter, whose husband had wasted nearly the whole in his extravagant manner of living. Cedar Grove, too, she said, was mortgaged to Richard for more than it was worth, and it was wholly owing to his forbearance and extreme generosity that Mrs. Lansing was enabled to support her present style of living. This, she said, aside from Mrs. Lansing’s hope that her children would one day inherit her brother’s wealth, was a sufficient reason why she wished him to remain a bachelor, as the presence of a wife at Sunny Bank would, in all probability, lessen his liberality towards herself. Miss Dean, who seemed to be well posted, also told me that, in case Mrs. Lansing saw her brother was determined to marry, she would, of course, prefer that he should marry Ada, who was quite a favorite, inasmuch as she had money of her own, and was connected with one of the first families in South Carolina. All this I believed, and when I saw how anxious Mrs. Lansing appeared for Ada’s return, and how much interest Mr. Delafield, too, seemed to take in her, I felt sure that matters were at last amicably arranged, and that, for once, rumor was right in saying that Sunny Bank would, in the autumn, be graced by the presence of a mistress. Latterly, Mr. Delafield had been making some repairs, and only a few days before, when I chanced to be there with Jessie, he had taken me through his library into a little, pleasant, airy room, which he was fitting up with great elegance.