Could Mr. Masters come
out on that day to Bragton and see Mrs. Morton. The note was very
particular in saying that Mrs. Morton was to be the person seen.
The messenger who waited for an answer, brought back word that Mr.
Masters would be there at noon. The circumstance was one which
agitated him considerably, as he had not been inside the house at
Bragton since the days immediately following the death of the old
Squire. As it happened, Lady Ushant was going to Bragton on the
same day, and at the suggestion of Mr. Runciman, whose horses in
the hunting season barely sufficed for his trade, the old lady and
the lawyer went together. Not a word was said between them as to
the cause which took either of them on their journey, but they
spoke much of the days in which they had known each other, when the
old Squire was alive, and Mr. Masters thanked Lady Ushant for her
kindness to his daughter. "I love her almost as though she were my
own," said Lady Ushant. "When I am dead she will have half of what
I have got."
"She will have no right to expect that," said the gratified father.
"She will have half or the whole, just as Reginald may be situated
then. I don't know why I shouldn't tell her father what it is I
mean to do." The attorney knew to a shilling the amount of Lady
Ushant's income and thought that this was the best news he had
heard for many a day.
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