“Aunt Elizabeth,” said Monica suddenly after a long pause, betraying for the first time the emotion she felt, “Aunt Elizabeth, I do not wish to be wicked or ungenerous, but I _hate_ that man! He has no right to be at Trevlyn, yet he will some day come and turn out Arthur and me. I cannot help hating him for it; but oh, if only he would be good to Arthur, if only he would let him stay, I could bear anything else I think. _Do_ you think he would be generous, and would let him keep his own little corner of the Castle? It does not seem much to ask, yet father thought it might be difficult. Arthur is so patient, so good, he might learn to love him—he might even adopt him, so to speak. Am I very foolish to hope such things, Aunt Elizabeth?—they do not seem impossible to me.” Mrs. Pendrill mused a little while. “Has this Mr. Trevlyn any family?” “I do not know. Father did not speak of a wife. I fancy he is an old bachelor.” “He is old, then?” “I fancy he is elderly, or at any rate middle-aged, or father would hardly care to have him on a visit. He must be younger than father, of course, but I do not know anything more about him. Oh, it will be very hard; but if he will only be good to Arthur, I will try to bear the rest.” “I am sure you will, my Monica,” said Mrs. Pendrill tenderly. “I am sure you will never be ungenerous or act unworthily. A dark cloud seems hanging over your life, but there is light behind, though we cannot always see it. And, remember, my darling, that gold shines all the brighter for having been tried in the furnace.” “I know the fellow,” said Tom Pendrill, an hour later, when Monica had gone, and he had heard from his aunt part of what had passed between them. “Monica is out about his age; he can’t be more than six or seven and twenty, and a right good fellow he is too, and would make my lady a capital husband, if he is not married already. Randolph Trevlyn was at Oxford; I knew him there pretty well, though he was only an undergraduate when I had taken my degree. The name sounded home-like, and I made friends with him. He wasn’t anywhere near the title then, but I suppose there have been deaths in the family since. Well, well, the earl is quite right to have him down, and if he could manage to fall in love with Monica and marry her, it would simplify matters wonderfully; but that wild bird will need a good deal of training before she will come at a husband’s call, and there is such a thing as spreading the snare too much in the sight of the quarry.” No thought of this kind, however, entered into Monica’s head. She was far too unversed in the ways of the world to entertain the smallest suspicion of the hopes entertained on her account. She thought a good deal of the coming guest as the days went by—thought of him with bitterness, with aversion, with mistrust, but in the light of a possible husband—never for a single instant.