a moment or two later they were forced to tell Mrs. Temple that she was childless.

Then the pent-up anguish broke loose. The bereaved mother caught the dead boy in her arms, and called to him by every endearing name to come back to her.

“Come back, my darling, my darling; do not leave me alone!” she shrieked in her despair.

They sent for her mother, but the very presence of Mrs. Layton seemed still further to excite her.

“But for you,” she cried, turning on her mother in her frantic grief, “he would never have been born! But for you I would have been with George—George Hill, from whom you parted me!”

It was a most painful scene. Mrs. Layton drew the gray-haired old squire out of the room, and tried to whisper some words of comfort in his ear.

“Grief has made poor Rachel beside herself,” she said. “Fancy her talking of George Hill now, when the poor fellow has been dead over ten years. They were children together, you know.”

But Mr. Temple made no answer. He knew very well that his wife was speaking the truth, and that his mother-in-law was not. He turned from Mrs. Layton and went into his library, and sat there alone, thinking. The boy’s death had changed everything. Mr. Temple was a rich man, for besides his own large property, he had in his youth married for his first wife the daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Devon, whose estates marched with his own. At her death this lady had left everything she possessed to her husband, and thus Mr. Temple was one of the largest land-owners in the country.

The old man sighed when he thought of all this, and covered his face with his hands. He was thinking who would now come after him; thinking of his heir. He knew who it must be. The Woodlea estates had been entailed by his father in the event of his having no children, beyond him. The late Mr. Temple had left two sons, Phillip, the heir, and John, who had gone into the army and died young. But he had married, and left a son, also named John. This John Temple the squire knew was now the heir to Woodlea. He was a man of some thirty years old, and occasionally had visited his uncle, but no great intimacy had existed between them.

John Temple had a fair fortune, and had not sought to increase it. He had been educated as a barrister, but he had never practiced. He had lived a good deal abroad, and led a roving life, it was said, but his uncle knew very little about him. He had had in truth small interest in him. But now all this was changed. His bright young son, his hope and pride, had passed away, and the old squire, sitting with his bowed head, knew that John Temple was his heir.

CHAPTER II.
THE MAYFLOWER.

Three days later they carried young Phillip Temple to his grave, and the new heir came to Woodlea as a mourner. His uncle had written to John Temple to tell him of the sad and untimely death of his son, and John Temple had received the news with a little shrug.

“Poor lad, what a pity, and he was such a fine boy,” he said to the friend who was dining with him, when the squire’s black-edged letter was placed in his hand.

“But this will make a great difference to you?” answered his friend.

It was then John Temple gave the little shrug.

“It will give me a good many more thousands a year than I have now hundreds,” he said, “but that will be about the only difference. The poor lad with his youth would have enjoyed the old man’s money more than I shall. I am too old to believe in the pleasures of riches.”

“I am not, then,” replied the friend enviously; “you can buy anything.”

“No,” answered John Temple, and his brow darkened.

He was a good-looking man, this new heir of Woodlea, tall and slender, and with a pair of keen gray eyes beneath his dark brows. He looked also fairly-well content with life, and took most things calmly, if not with absolute indifference.

“I have been able to pay my way, and what more does a man want?” he said, presently, as his friend still harped on his new inheritance. “To be in debt is disgusting; I should work hard to keep out of it.”

“It is very difficult to keep out of it,” was the reply he received.

“You must cut your coat according to your cloth,” answered John Temple, smiling. “Had I lived extravagantly I should now have been in debt, but I have not, and therefore I have no duns.”

What he said of himself was quite true. He had lived within his income, and was not therefore greatly elated by learning that he would probably soon be a rich man. Perhaps he affected to care less about his change of fortune than he really did. He was cynic enough for this. At all events he accepted his uncle’s invitation to be present at his poor young cousin’s funeral, and he wrote in becoming and even feeling terms of the sad loss the squire had sustained.

Mr. Temple read this letter with a sigh, but he was not displeased with it. He did not show it to his wife, who was prostrate with grief. Mrs. Temple’s condition was indeed truly pitiable. Her one moan was she had no one to love her now, and she refused to be comforted.

“She will be better,” said Mrs. Layton to the squire, “when it is all over. Rachel is, and always was, very emotional.”

Mrs. Layton meant that her daughter would be better when her young son was in his grave. But Mr. Temple did not consult his mother-in-law on the subject. He fixed the day for the poor lad’s burial himself, and he invited the funeral guests. And it was only after John Temple had accepted his invitation that he told Mrs. Layton that he expected his nephew.

Mrs. Layton went home to the vicarage brimful of the news.

“Of course this young man is the heir now,” she said to her husband; “but surely Rachel will have the Hall for her life? We must see about this, James.”

The Rev. James Layton, an easy-going man, looked up from the composition of his weekly sermon as his wife spoke.

“I dare say it will be all right,” he said.

“But it may not be; this young man is sure to marry after the squire’s death, and he looks extremely ill and shaken, and I can not have Rachel’s home interfered with.”

“You are always looking forward,” replied the Rev. James, pettishly. “I’m busy, I’ve my sermon to finish.”

“The sermon can wait, and is of no consequence; but Rachel’s future is. You must speak to the squire about it at once.”

“I consider it would be absolutely indecent, Sarah, to do so at present.”

“That’s all very fine, but the poor old man may take a fit any day, and then where should we be—with a new madam at the Hall, after all Rachel has gone through?”

“She always seemed right enough till the poor lad died.”

“Still, she married an old man, and should therefore have the benefit of it.”

“Well, wait until the poor boy is in his grave, at any rate.”

“Dilatory as usual! I always said, James, you would never get on, because you are not pushing enough. You do not court the bishop like the other greedy parsons, and just look where you are. At sixty-nine, in a small vicarage like Woodlea, with under four hundred a year! You can not expect me to have patience; and how about poor Rachel? You’ll allow this young man, John Temple, to come down to the funeral, and perhaps obtain power over a silly old man, and your own daughter may be left out in the cold! And all because you won’t speak a few words, and insist on the Hall being settled on her.”

“Speak yourself,” said Mr. Layton, impatiently.

“I would at once, only I know he won’t listen to me. He’s got some stupid grudge into his silly