"'Tis thine, lass," the Yorkshireman replied. "If 'tis mine, 'tis thine. But leave it to me." He turned to the waiter who had been present, hearing what was said with the inscrutable face of one who hears nothing, "Send all these chaps and women up," he said. "Make 'em come up--every one. And, Alice, sit down and never move. I'll do the talking." They came up, some twenty in number. One of the blessings which attend the possession of great wealth is its power in bringing together and uniting in bonds of affection the various members of a family. Branches long since obscure and forgotten come to the light again; members long since supposed--or hoped--to be gone away to the Ewigkeit appear alive, and with progeny. They rally round the money; the possessor of the money becomes the head of the family, the object of their most sincere respect, the source of dignity and pride to the whole family. They trooped up the broad staircase, men and women, all together. They were old, and they were young; they presented, one must acknowledge, that kind of appearance which is called "common." It is not an agreeable thing to say of any one, especially of a woman, that he--or she--has a "common" appearance. Yet of Mrs. Haveril's cousins so much must be said, if one would preserve any reputation for truth. The elder women were accompanied by younger ones, their daughters, whose hats were monumental and their jackets deplorable: the ladies, both old and young, while waiting below, sniffed when they looked around them. They sniffed, and they whispered half aloud, "Shameful, my dear! and she only just come home!"--deploring the motives which led the others, not themselves, to this universal consent. The men, for their part, seemed more ashamed of themselves than of their neighbours. Their appearance betokened the small clerk or the retail tradesman. Yet there was hostility in their faces, as if, in any possible slopping over, or in any droppings, from the money-bag, there were too many of them for the picking up. They stood at the door, hesitating. The splendour of the room disconcerted them. They had never seen anything so magnificent. Mrs. Haveril half rose to greet her cousins. Beside her stood her husband--of the earth's great ones. At the sight of this god-like person an awe and hush fell upon all these souls. They were so poor, all of them; they had all their lives so ardently desired riches--a modest, a very modest income--as an escape from poverty with its scourge, that, at the sight of one who had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, their cheeks blanched, their knees trembled.