The Secret of the Growing Gold


When Margaret Delandre went to live at Brent's Rock the whole
neighbourhood awoke to the pleasure of an entirely new scandal. Scandals
in connection with either the Delandre family or the Brents of Brent's
Rock, were not few; and if the secret history of the county had been
written in full both names would have been found well represented. It is
true that the status of each was so different that they might have
belonged to different continents--or to different worlds for the matter
of that--for hitherto their orbits had never crossed. The Brents were
accorded by the whole section of the country a unique social dominance,
and had ever held themselves as high above the yeoman class to which
Margaret Delandre belonged, as a blue-blooded Spanish hidalgo out-tops
his peasant tenantry.

The Delandres had an ancient record and were proud of it in their way as
the Brents were of theirs. But the family had never risen above
yeomanry; and although they had been once well-to-do in the good old
times of foreign wars and protection, their fortunes had withered under
the scorching of the free trade sun and the 'piping times of peace.'
They had, as the elder members used to assert, 'stuck to the land', with
the result that they had taken root in it, body and soul. In fact, they,
having chosen the life of vegetables, had flourished as vegetation
does--blossomed and thrived in the good season and suffered in the bad.
Their holding, Dander's Croft, seemed to have been worked out, and to be