Mrs. Carlyon, a widow and childless, would gladly have adopted the orphan niece who came to her under these sad circumstances, but Squire Denison would not hear of such a thing. He had a prior claim to the child, he said, and she must go to him and be brought up under his care. He had no children of his own, and never would have any: Ella was the youngest and last descendant of the elder branch of the family, and Heron Dyke and all that pertained to it should be hers in time to come, provided always that he, Gilbert Denison, should live to see his seventieth birthday. He had loved his sister Lavinia as much as it was in his nature to love anyone; and her son, had he lived, would, in the due course of things, have been his heir. But he was dead, leaving behind him only this one poor little girl. To Gilbert Denison it seemed that Providence had dealt very hardly by him in giving him no male heir to inherit the family honours. He himself would have married years ago had he anticipated such a result.
For six hundred years the property had come down from male heir to male heir, but now at last the line of direct succession would be broken. "If Ella had only been a boy!" he sighed to himself a thousand times: but Ella was that much more pleasing article--except from the heir-at-law point of view--a beautiful young woman, and nothing could make her anything else.
On the confines of the park, just as she was about to turn out of it, Ella met Captain Lennox, who was coming to call on the Squire. It was the first time Ella had seen him since her return from London, for the Captain had been again from home. He had aristocratic relatives, it was understood, in various parts of the kingdom, and was often away on visits to them for weeks together.
"You are looking better than you were that night at Mrs. Carlyon's," he remarked, as they stood talking.
"Am I?" returned Ella, a rosy blush suffusing her face--for the idea somehow struck her that Mr. Conroy's presence in the neighbourhood might be making her look bright.
"Very much so, I think. Mrs. Carlyon was not quite satisfied with your looks then. By-the-way," added the Captain, after a pause, "has she recovered her jewels, that were lost that night?"