The arrival of the visitors had not been unattended with excitement at Penton itself. Little Mab Russell, the great heiress, had reached the house only a few days before, and as her uncle’s stately wife was an object of some alarm to her, the prospect of a companion of her own age was doubly agreeable. Mab was the daughter of a brother of Mr. Russell Penton’s, who had never been of much account in the family, who had gone abroad and made a great fortune, and died, leaving this one little girl rich enough to cause a flutter in whatever society she came into, as good as an estate, much better than most appointments for any young man in want of an establishment. Russell Penton had taken from the first a whimsical sort of interest in her, which did not show itself in the way in which interest is usually exhibited by elderly relations. To shield her from fortune-hunters, to find some equal match in which the advantage should not be altogether on the gentleman’s side, did not seem to be a thing which entered into his thoughts. He spoke of her with a faint laugh full of humor and a realization of all the circumstances such as few men would have made apparent. With the charitable and amused eyes of a man who had himself, being poor, married an heiress, he looked at all the flutterers who had already appeared in Mabel’s youthful train. He was tolerant of the young men. He laughed half abashed, half sympathetic, at their little wiles, asking himself had he made his intentions so transparent as that? and putting forth his little measures of defense without any of the hard words that generally accompany such precautions. When other people warned the little girl against the dangers to which she was subject--and she had already receive many warnings to this effect, even from Mrs. Russell Penton herself, who was one of the most anxious of her advisers--Mabel had been greatly comforted to find that her uncle Gerald only laughed. The little girl did not quite understand the combination; for when Gerald laughed, his wife grew more grave than ever and anxious to protect the heiress. “Why does Uncle Gerald laugh?” she had asked one day. And Mrs. Russell Penton had grown very red, and said something about his inclination to see a joke in the gravest subjects, which Mabel, who was very fond of her uncle, thought severe. And their several accounts of the expected visitors perplexed her more and more.