some said, to pursue his own wicked courses--while others
declared that he intended her to marry the old Lord's eldest
son.

In any case, Silvia Doria came like the Spring, like the
sunlight, into the lonely place. Even the old Lord felt himself
curiously happy when he heard her voice singing about the house;
as for Henry and Francis, it was heaven for them just to walk by
her side down the garden alleys.

And Silvia Doria, though hitherto she had been but cold toward
the London gallants who had courted her, found, little by
little, that her heart was not untouched.

But, in spite of her father, and her own girlish love of gold
and rank, it was not for Henry that she cared, not for the old
Lord, but for Francis, the younger son. Did Francis know of
this? They were secretly lovers, the old scandal reported; and
the scandal, it may be, had reached her father's ears.

For one day a coach with foaming horses, and the wicked face of
an old man at its window, galloped up the avenue; and soon
afterwards, when the coach drove away, Silvia Doria was sitting
by the old man's side, sobbing bitterly.

And after she had gone, a long time, many of the old, last-century
years, went by without any change. And then Henry, the eldest son,
was killed in hunting; and the old Lord dying a few years later,
the titles and the great house and all the land and gold came to
Francis, the younger son. But after his father's death he was but