"Indeed, then Mr. St. Quintin's a pleasant young gentleman," said Bridget, broadly smiling, "though an imp of mischief. 'Tis meself'll not forget in a hurry how he whipped the steps from undher Grady whin he was pickin' the morello cherries, an' never purtended he heard him bawlin' melia murther, an' the ould rogue, as he was contrivin' to slip down by the trunk, caught by a twig in his breeches an' held there! As I said to Mr. St. Quintin, I hoped he thought then on poor Mary that's gone, that often he made suffer, the crathur!" "I thought you were going to marry him, Bridget," said Sylvia, with the same languid interest. "Och, then, heaven forgive you, Miss Sylvia. Sure them was only my jokes. Not but what he axed me. 'The mischief bother you, man,' says I. 'Is it havin' me commit murther you'd be? Why, sure I couldn't keep me hands off you if I was lookin' at you every day, an' then I'd be tried an' hung for it, maybe.'" "Well, I'm glad you're not going to marry him under the circumstances," said Sylvia. "But, all the same, it is time some of us made a stir." And even then one thing that was to disturb the current of their lives was on its way. The very morning after Sylvia's conversation with Bridget there was a large square envelope for Mr. Graydon, which somewhat exercised his youngest daughter's imagination. "Come here, dad," she said, when at last he arrived at the breakfast-table. "I've been longing for something to happen, and I believe this is really a happening at last." "It is my uncle's writing," said Mr. Graydon, as he took the letter and opened it. As he read it his face grew graver and graver. "Poor old Uncle Charles!" he said, when he had finished. "His boy is dead." Lord Downshire's letter was very characteristic:-- "MY DEAR ARCHIE,--I will not say you have scored again, but at least I have failed with the last card I held against you. My boy is dead. I don't ask for your sympathy or your pity. You, with your healthy girls, cannot appreciate what I suffer. I am racked in the spirit and the body, and I shall be very glad to leave a world that has lost savour for me. I heard indirectly that you were ill after you had been here; but, you see, _you_ have recovered, and it is my boy that is dead. You are my heir now, and I am too sick of it all to make another attempt to frustrate you. And there is no use continuing in enmity against you, so I shall make you an allowance proportionate to the condition of my heir. I shall not ask to see you, but Messrs. Lees and Saunders, of Lincoln's Inn--you will remember Saunders; Lees died last year--have my instructions." Mr. Graydon put the letter into his pocket when he had read it. "Something has happened, Sylvia," he said sorrowfully. "I am Lord Downshire's heir once more; and yet I would a thousand times rather be as I was, and the old man's little son living." But the happenings of the day were not over.