"You are always putting your foot in it," said Currie. "I kept on
winking to you but it was no good. He sees her almost every day
now. She's staying with old Mrs. Green in Portugal Street. There
has been some break up between her and her mother, and old Mrs.
Green has taken her in. There's some sort of relationship. Mounser
is the old woman's nephew, and she is aunt by marriage to the
Connop Greens down in Hampshire, and Mrs. Connop Green is first
cousin to Lady Augustus."
"If Dick's sister married Tom's brother what relation would Dick be
to Tom's mother? That's the kind of thing, isn't it?" suggested
Hoffmann.
"At any rate there she is, and Mounser sees her every day."
"It don't make any difference about Rufford," said young Glossop
stoutly.
All this happened before the will had been declared,--when Arabella
did not dream that she was an heiress. A day or two afterwards she
received a letter from the lawyer, telling her of her good fortune,
and informing her that the trinkets would be given up to her and
the money paid,--short of legacy duty,--whenever she would fix a
time and place. The news almost stunned her. There was a moment in
which she thought that she was bound to reject this money, as she
had rejected that tendered to her by the other man. Poor as she
was, greedy as she was, alive as she was to the necessity of doing
something for herself,--still this legacy was to her at first
bitter rather than sweet.
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