Annot made no immediate reply to a startling statement, which she suspected was merely the outcome of natural female jealousy, and perhaps rancour in the heart of Hester Maule. But the memory of the latter went too distinctly back to that mournful day at Earlshaugh when the last laird had been borne to his last home on the shoulders of his serving men, while Roland was in Egypt, and poor Maude too ill to leave her own room; the solemn and substantial luncheon that was laid in the dining-hall for all who attended the funeral, and of the subsequent reading of the will by Mr. M'Wadsett in the Red Drawing-room to that listening group, over whom lay the hush and the shadow of selfish anticipation; the legacies to faithful old servants, those to her father, to herself, and other relations; and then the terrible clause which bequeathed to 'his well-beloved wife and ministering angel of his later days' everything else of which the testator died possessed. And then followed the buzz of astonishment and dissatisfaction with which the sombre assembly broke up. Of these details Hester said nothing to Annot; but the latter had now something _to reflect upon_, which was too distasteful for consideration, and which she endeavoured resolutely to set aside. Sooth to say, her selfish delight in the solid, luxurious, and baronial glories of Earlshaugh was too great to be easily dissipated, and she had still, as ever, a decided, repugnance to the recollections of her widowed mother's struggles with limited means; and their somewhat sordid home in South Belgravia, as she sought courageously to shut her bright eyes to the gruesome probabilities of Hester's communication. With a sigh of sorrow, in which, notwithstanding the gentleness of her nature, much of contempt was mingled, Hester Maule regarded her town-bred cousin, who though apparently so volatile and thoughtless, was quite a watchful little woman of the world, with what seemed childish ways, and Hebe-like beauty, so fair, so soft, with rose-leaf complexion, and her _petite_ face peeping forth, as it were, from among the coils and masses of her wonderful golden hair; and yet she was ever ready to sacrifice everything to society--that Moloch to which so many now sacrifice purity, happiness, and life itself. For Annot believed in a union of hands and lands, with hearts left out of the compact. CHAPTER XXVII. ANNOT'S MISGIVINGS. Jack Elliot's mishap--accident though it could scarcely be called--thoroughly marred and shortened the partridge shooting at Earlshaugh, and the birds had quite a holiday of it. 'Never mind, Jack,' Roland had said on his departure for Edinburgh, 'you'll make amends when the pheasants are ready.'