“I cried all that day and many days after. The steward and his wife and the two old servants who had known and loved and served my mother, encouraged me with their sympathy and lamentations to yield to my grief and despair; but the governess frowned upon me and lectured me upon my duty to my parents, as it was her business to do—only it seemed to me cruel in her. “As days passed my passionate grief subsided. “My father did not bring his bride to Weirdwaste, which was, indeed, no fit place to bring a fine lady. Nor did he send for me to join them wherever they might be. “He heard regularly from me through the doctor, the vicar, the steward, or my governess. And he seemed to be content with my condition. “So the year passed away. I was thankful to my father for one thing—that he did not bring my stepmother and myself together. “This was all wrong, but I did not know it then. I was unconsciously influenced by the sentiments of my own mother’s own old servants who were about me, and who, whenever Miss Murray was out of sight, would commiserate with me on the subject of my stepmother, and then rejoice with me on the fact that no future heir to Enderby that might be born of the second marriage, could deprive me of my inheritance of Weirdwaste, which was mine in right of my own mother. “Ah me! Enderby Castle and Weirdwaste sounded well enough in the peerage, but in point of fact the united rent roll of both places did not reach over a thousand pounds per annum, and my father, for his rank, was a very poor man. “I expected to see my father at Christmas. He wrote to the steward to say that he would come and bring Lady Enderby with him, and that the house must be made as comfortable as possible for her reception; and that the suit of rooms pointing south must be fitted up for her especial use. “This letter filled my soul with dismay. I could have looked forward with delight to the visit of my father, had he been coming alone; but I could only dread the meeting with my stepmother. “However, both the pleasure and the pain were saved me, for after the servants had got the house ready for the reception of my father and his new wife, there came another letter saying that the delicate health of Lady Enderby obliged him to take her to Italy for the winter. And in place of my father and stepmother’s visit, came a box of presents. “I was again divided in my feelings—sorry not to see my father, glad not to see my stepmother. “The Christmas box was a large and well-filled one, packed with flannels and blankets, and tea and sugar for the old women in the huts on the waste, and containing another smaller box with cakes, sweetmeats and sugar plums for me and my small household.