years in the district, regarded with interest by all his neighbours and with more than interest by some; for was it not in his power to make one of his feminine contemporaries, however humble she might be by birth, and however poor in this world’s goods, a great lady?--and so long as human nature remains as it is, this cannot cease to be a very potent attraction. Indeed the wonder is that young women should not be altogether demoralized by the perpetual recurrence of such chances of undeserved, unearned elevation. Young Lord Stanton could do this. He could give fine houses and lands, a title, and all the good things of this earth to his cousin Laura, or his cousin Lydia, or any other girl in the county that pleased him. Therefore it cannot be wondered at if his appearance fluttered the dovecotes with sentiments as powerful and more pleasant than those which fill the nests at the appearance of predatory hawk or eagle. But any such flutter of feeling was held in Elfdale to be an unwarrantable impertinence on the part of the other ladies of the county. Long ago, at the time when at six years old he had succeeded to his stepbrother, there had been a tacit family understanding to the effect that one of Sir Henry’s daughters should be the young lord’s wife. Sir Henry, though old enough to have been the father of his murdered cousin would have been his heir but for Geoff--and it was universally allowed to be hard upon him that when such an unlikely chance happened, as that young Lord Stanton should die, there should be this boy coming in the way forestalling his claim. Nobody had wanted that child who was suddenly turned into a personage of so much importance--not even his father, who had married with a single-minded idea of being comfortable in his own person, and who was much annoyed by the prospect of “a second family”--a prospect which was happily, however, cut short by his own speedy death. When therefore Walter Lord Stanton was killed, it was very generally felt that Sir Henry had a real grievance in the existence of the little stepbrother, who was in the way of everybody except his poor mother, whom the old lord had married to nurse him, and who had taken the unwarrantable liberty of adding little Geoffrey to the family. Poor little Geoff! he was bullied on all hands so long as his brother lived; and then, what a change came over his life and that of his mother, who was as pale and shy as her boy! Great good fortune may change even complexion, and Geoff as he grew to be a man was no longer pale. But Sir Henry never quite got over the blow dealt him by this succession. He had not resented Walter. Walter was so to speak the natural heir--and nobody expected him to die; but when he did die, so out of all calculation, to think there should be that boy! Sir Henry did not get over it for years--it was a positive wrong not to be forgotten.