“It will depend upon Stella. I should like to bring them all here. I have had our old rooms prepared for the nurseries; and there are fires everywhere to air the house. They will feel the cold very much, I suppose. But if the fine weather lasts----. There is only one thing against it, Stella may not care to come.” “Oh, Stella will come,” said Lady Jane, “the island is the right place, don’t you know, to have a house in, and everybody she used to know will see her here in her glory--and then her husband will be able to run up to town--and begin to squander the money away. Charlie Somers is my own relation, Katherine, but I don’t put much faith in him. I wish it had been as we anticipated, and everything had been in your hands.” “You know what I should have done at once, Lady Jane, if it had----” “I know--not this, however, anyhow. I hope you would have had sense enough to keep your share. It would have been far better in the long run for Stella, she would always have had you to fall back upon. My heart is broken about it all, Katherine. I blame myself now more than at the first. I should never have countenanced them; and I never should if I had thought it would bring disaster upon you.” “You need not blame yourself, Lady Jane, for this was the will of ’71; and if you had never interfered at all, if there had been no Charles Somers, and no elopement, it would have been just the same.” “There is something in that,” Lady Jane said. “And now I hope, I do hope, that Stella--she is not like you, my dear Katherine. She has never been brought up to think of any one but herself.” “She has been brought up exactly as I was,” Katherine said with a smile. “Ah yes, but it is different, quite different; the foolish wicked preference which was shown for her, did good to you--you are a different creature, and most likely it is more or less owing to that. Katherine, you know there are things in which I think you were wrong. When that good, kind man wanted to marry you, as indeed he does now----” “Not very much, I think, Lady Jane; which is all the better, as I do not wish at all to marry him.” “I think you are making a mistake,” said Lady Jane. “He is not so ornamental perhaps as Charlie Somers, but he is a far better man. Well, then, I suppose there is nothing more to be said; but I can’t help thinking that if you had a man to stand by you they would never have propounded that will.” “Indeed,” said Katherine, “you must not think they had anything to do with it; the will was propounded because it was the only one that was there.”