Dreary and sad looked the old house with its closed windows and streamers of black at the door. Twice within a week had death borne away an inmate, and a gloomy shadow hung over everything. Lelia had been watching for him through the shutters, and she came out to meet him with a forced smile to hide her bitter resentment. “Come into my room and talk to me a while, I am so lonely,” she pleaded, when she had received the cold kiss for which she held up her lips. “Indeed, Lelia, you must excuse me, I have to go to my father and tell him my plans for the funeral to-morrow, and then I must lock myself into my room for an undisturbed sleep. I am simply fagged out,” he replied, turning coldly away. CHAPTER XXIX. THE HEIRESS. Miss Willoughby’s funeral was over. The kindly, gentle old lady had been laid to rest among her kindred in the family graveyard, close to The Crags. All the best people in the county had attended the obsequies and loving hands had strewn the mound with fragrant flowers. Among the chief mourners Lelia had appeared draped in costly black, leaning on her husband’s arm, the heavy veil drawn decorously over her face that drooped against Laurie’s shoulder in seeming sorrow. But it was only seeming, for her heart beat high with pride and joy in her fortuitous circumstances. Laurie and Miss Willoughby’s fortune were both within her grasp, she thought exultantly. This afternoon the lawyer was coming to read the will and she had no misgivings over the contents. There would be a few legacies, of course. General Willoughby and her mother were sure to be remembered handsomely, and the old lady, in her justice and honesty, would certainly reward those of her servants who had deserved her kindness and been faithful in their service. She might even leave a small fund for the maintenance of her pet cats--she had been so tender-hearted. But the bulk of her fortune, probably half a million, would go to her and Laurie. With such brilliant prospects, how could any one expect her to really grieve over the death of an old lady whom she scarcely saw more than a month out of a year, and who had been frank enough to point out to the spoiled beauty her glaring faults of heart and mind and adjure her to correct them; a keen resentment over this fact, and her exultation over inheriting the fortune, made Lelia’s pangs of grief so light they were easily consoled. So she felt quite an air of proprietorship as she re-entered The Crags, returning from the funeral. True, Laurie had preserved toward her a maddening coldness of demeanor and a studied avoidance of her society, but she trusted to time and her woman’s wiles to overcome this passing cloud. He had loved her once, he should love her again. After all, since that confidential talk with her mother this morning, Lelia felt it was better that Laurie had held so coldly aloof.