absolute stupidity or unpardonable bad taste. So, on the whole, these young people were tolerably comfortable in their minds, and felt an equable though unexpressed confidence in their mutual affection and in the future. The circumstance of Sir Peregrine Alsager's will making no mention of Helen--in fact, having been made before she became his ward, and during Lady Alsager's lifetime--had taken them both by surprise, and affected them differently. Helen had always known that her own very moderate income--which Sir Peregrine had always supplemented by a liberal allowance--was all that she actually possessed, or had any positive right to expect. But she had never entertained any doubt that her guardian intended to leave her a handsome provision, and she experienced a considerable shock when she learned that he had not done so. She could not understand it, and she was still more puzzled and surprised when Sir Laurence told her that he found himself a very much richer man than he had ever expected to be. Helen had too much good sense, and even in her secluded, life had learned to estimate facts and to eschew sentimental fallacies; so she did not affect to be indifferent on the subject, or to think that it was quite as well to be poor as to be rich, to be dependent as to be independent; but she did think and feel with very consoling sincerity that Cuthbert would have no more scruples about asking her to share his lot when her own had ceased to be of a nature to contrast with it. So she accepted her altered position cheerfully, and asked Sir Laurence what he would advise her to do, with a true-hearted freedom from anger or jealousy which elevated her to a great height in the mind of the new Baronet. Sir Laurence made her an evasive answer, and begged her to defer any decision on the subject until his return to Knockholt. He was going away, first to town, and then abroad, he told her, most probably; and she and Mrs. Chisholm must remain and take charge there for him. He would keep up the establishment just as it had been, with the exception of the stable department. Helen acquiesced with great readiness. She was too completely a lady to feel any awkwardness in such an arrangement, and she knew well that Laurence's interests would be best served by her accepting his offer. "I will stay here then," she said, "and go on just as usual. I don't know whether you are aware that I was Sir Peregrine's almoner. Am I to be yours? The farm-bailiffs, the keepers, and all the rest of your people, are my excellent good friends. I shall get on capitally with them, and go my old rounds in the village, and so forth. But I want to know what I am to do about the charities, the schools, and the promiscuous applications to the 'great house.'"