"Yes, my dear, it is true. Your grandfather--old Lord Hilden--departed this life on the sixth of last March. His only living son survived him but a few weeks, and died without issue, and the title and estates, with a rent-roll of eight thousand pounds per annum, has descended, in right of your father, to yourself!" "I shall have so much to give to William!" involuntarily exclaimed Alice. "Madam!" exclaimed Colonel Delany in surprise. Alice blushed violently at having thought aloud. "Dear sir," said she, "I did not know what I was saying." "Ah, well, I suppose you are a little startled with this sudden news," said the Colonel, smiling; "but now it is necessary for you to examine with us some of these papers. Ah, I crave your pardon, Mr. Reynard--Lady Hilden, this is Mr. Reynard, late solicitor to your deceased grandfather, the Baron----" Great was the excitement in the neighborhood when it was noised abroad that Alice Raymond had become a baroness, in her own right, and the possessor of a large estate in England. And when, for the first time since her accession to her new dignities, she appeared at church, in deep mourning, every eye was turned upon her, and she almost sank beneath the gaze of so many people. In the height of the "nine days' wonder," William Dulan returned, and was greeted by the news from every quarter. "Oh, Alice--lost! lost! lost to me forever!" exclaimed he, in agony, as he paced, with hurried strides, up and down the floor of his little room. "Oh, my mother, if it were not for thee, I should pray that this wretched heart of mine would soon be stilled in death." If any human being will look candidly upon the events of his own life, and the history of his own heart, with a view to examine the causes of suffering, he will be constrained to admit that by far the greater portion of his miseries have originated in misapprehension, and might have been easily prevented or cured by a little calm investigation. It was so with William Dulan, who was at this moment suffering the most acute agony of mind he ever felt in his life, from a misconception, a doubt, which a ten minutes' walk to the house of Colonel Delany, and a ten minutes' talk with Alice, would have dissipated forever. If Richard Delany was anxious before to wed his cousin for love, he was now half crazy to take that step by which both love and ambition would be gratified to the utmost.