Had Mrs. Ashleigh said "Duty is torture," she could not have uttered the
maxim with more mournful and despondent resignation.

"And what does this lady require of you, which Mr. Vigors deems it your
duty to comply with?"

"Dear me! What penetration! You have guessed the exact truth. But I
think you will agree with Mr. Vigors. Certainly I have no option; yes, I
must do it."

"My penetration is in fault now. Do what? Pray explain."

"Poor Lady Haughton, six months ago, lost her only son, Sir James. Mr.
Vigors says he was a very fine young man, of whom any mother would have
been proud. I had heard he was wild; Mr. Vigors says, however, that he
was just going to reform, and marry a young lady whom his mother chose for
him, when, unluckily, he would ride a steeplechase, not being quite sober
at the time, and broke his neck. Lady Haughton has been, of course, in
great grief. She has retired to Brighton; and she wrote to me from
thence, and Mr. Vigors brought the letter. He will go back to her
to-day."

"Will go back to Lady Haughton? What! Has he been to her? Is he, then,
as intimate with Lady Haughton as he was with her brother?"

"No; but there has been a long and constant correspondence. She had a
settlement on the Kirby Estate,--a sum which was not paid off during
Gilbert's life; and a very small part of the property went to Sir James,
which part Mr. Ashleigh Sumner, the heir-at-law to the rest of the estate,
wished Mr. Vigors, as his guardian, to buy during his minority, and as it