He had at first been quite dazed by the magnitude of his good fortune. When it came to him it found him somewhat sore and angry at a recent rebuff which had wounded his vanity not a little. But the excitement of his great change of fortune soon healed what little smart remained. A few months before he succeeded, he had fallen in love, not for the first time by many times, with a woman who seemed to meet his requirements. She was gentle, submissive, pretty, easily led, refined, not an heiress, but by no means penniless. To his surprise and indignation she had refused him, evidently not without a certain tepid regret. He discovered that the mother had other views for her daughter, and that the daughter, though she inclined towards him, was quite incapable or even desirous of opposing her mother. She was gentleness and pliability itself. These qualities, so admirable in domestic life, have a tendency of which he had not thought before to make their charming owner, if a hitch occurs, subside into becoming another man's wife. If only women could be adamant until they reach the altar, and like wax afterwards. When everything bitter that could be said at the expense of women had been ably expressed, Lord Lossiemouth withdrew. A month later, when he was making an angry walking tour in Hungary, he learned from an English paper, already many days old, of the two deaths which effected his great change of fortune. He communicated with his lawyer, arranged to return by a certain date, and continued his tour for another month. On his return he had gone at once to Lossiemouth, which he had visited occasionally as a poor and peppery and not greatly respected relation. Business of all kinds instantly engulfed him. He was impatient, difficult, _distrait_, slightly pleased with himself at showing so little gratification at his magnificent inheritance. On the third day he sorted out the letters which looked like personal ones, from among a heap of correspondence, the accumulation of many weeks. Quantities of envelopes were torn open, and the contents thrown aside, begging letters, decently veiled congratulations from "old friends" who had not so far shown any particular desire to make their friendship a joy to him. Presently he came upon a long, closely written letter of several sheets, in a slanting hand, which he was about to dismiss as another begging letter when his eye fell on the signature. Bellows? Bulteel? Buller? _Bellairs?_ Aunt Aggie's signature was quite illegible. It was an arranged squiggle painfully acquired in youth, which through life had resulted in all kinds of difficulties with tradespeople, and in continual annoyance and inconvenience to herself. Letters and parcels were frequently directed to her as A. Buller, Esq. She could only account for this mistake by the business-like nature of her style and handwriting. She often told her friends that, unless people knew her personally, her letters were generally believed to be a man's.