It was the portrait of her only brother she was looking at. Tom and Rose were her cousin’s children, though they called her aunt. She had adopted them when Rose was a baby and Tom a sturdy lad of five. Woodcote had been their home ever since. Tom had grown up knowing that the estate was to be his at Miss Merivale’s death. James Merivale had died young, ten years before his father; and Lydia, Miss Merivale’s only sister, had married against her father’s wishes, and had been disowned by him. After vainly trying to gain his forgiveness, she and her husband emigrated to Australia, and for some years nothing was heard of them. Then Lydia wrote to her father, telling him that she was a widow, and begging him to send her money that she might come home. The stern old man burnt the letter without answering it and without showing it to his daughter Lucy, and the next news came in a letter written by Lydia to her sister. She had married again, her husband’s partner, James Sampson, and had a little daughter, whom she had named Rhoda, after her mother. The letter asked for money, and Miss Merivale sent what she could, though she had little to send, for her father demanded a strict account of all she spent. She gave him the letter to read, and he returned it to her without a word; but his heart must have relented towards his disobedient daughter at the last, for by a codicil to his will it was provided that at Miss Merivale’s death Woodcote was to pass to Lydia, or, in the event of her not surviving her sister, to her daughter Rhoda. But poor Lydia never knew that her father had forgiven her. She died three days before him; and when her sister’s letter reached Australia, James Sampson had broken up his home in Melbourne and started with his little daughter for a distant settlement. He never reached the settlement, and all Miss Merivale’s efforts to trace him proved fruitless. She at last accepted the belief of the lawyers that he had lost his way, and, like so many other hapless wanderers, had perished in the bush. When Tom had become dear as a son to her, fears would sometimes rise that his claim to Woodcote might one day be disputed; but as the quiet years went on these fears ceased to present themselves, and when Pauline mentioned Rhoda Sampson the name had gone through her like a knife. She tried--she had been trying ever since--to tell herself that it was impossible it could be James Sampson’s child, but the terror had laid fast hold of her, and she could not shake it off. It was as James Sampson’s child she had always thought of her niece. Her heart had refused to give her the place Lydia’s little girl had a right to claim. She could not think of her as Lydia’s. Tom had not noticed his aunt’s agitation at the mention of her sister’s name. He went on speaking of his visit to Broadhurst. “They want you to spend a day or two there next week, Rosie. Mr. Powell has asked Laura to sing at the concert, and she wants to practise with you.”