Meade L. T. - The Time of Roses стр 7.

Accordingly Florence and Trevor, Florence well knowing that Kitty had not been allowed to come with her, started on their tour of investigation alone. They found the sea-anemones and chatted about them, and Trevor asked Florence if she would like to begin to make a collection, and Florence began by saying "Yes," but finally refused the tempting offer which Trevor made to help her in the matter.

"I am going to London in a few days," she said.

"To London?" he asked; "now, in this broiling weather?"

"Yes; why not? Don't you like London in August?"

"I never care for London at any time in August it is particularly detestable," was his reply. "We are going to stay here for a day or two. I think you know Miss Keys; she told me that you were an old friend of hers."

"She

would be nice to have a boy about the house. They were cheerful creatures. As they grew to be men, they were more or less a protection. Boys, of course, had none of the small ways of girls. A deceitful boy was a creature almost unknown."

So Mrs. Aylmer thought, and she began to look around for a suitable boy to adopt and leave her money to. No sooner did she seriously contemplate this idea than the opportunity to adopt a very special boy occurred to her. She had an old friend, a great friend, a woman whom as a girl she had really loved. This woman was now a widow: she was a certain Mrs. Trevor. She had married an army man, who had died gloriously in battle. He had won his V. C. before he departed to a better world. His widow had a small pension, and one son. Mrs. Trevor happened just about this very time to write to Mrs. Aylmer. She told her of her great and abiding sorrow, and spoke with the deepest delight and admiration of her boy.

"Send Maurice to spend a week with me," was Mrs. Aylmer's telegraphic reply to this epistle.

In some astonishment, Mrs. Trevor packed up her boy's things he was a lad of eighteen at this time and sent him off to visit Mrs. Aylmer in her beautiful country place.

Maurice Trevor was frank, innocent, open as the day. He pleased the widow because he did not try to please her in the least. He liked Bertha Keys because all apparently amiable people suited him, and Bertha certainly did look distinctly amiable. Soon she got into his confidence, and he talked of his future. He wanted to go into the army, as his father had done before him. Bertha suggested that he should tell his desire to Mrs. Aylmer. This Maurice Trevor would not think of doing. He spent a week, a fortnight, a month with the widow, and went back to his mother, having secured a great deal more than he bargained for in the course of his visit.

Mrs. Aylmer now wrote to Mrs. Trevor, said that she liked Maurice very much, that she had no heir to leave her money to, and that if Maurice really turned out quite to her satisfaction she would make him her future heir. He must live with her during the holidays; he must give up his mother's society, except for a very short time in the year; he must be thoroughly well educated; must, on no account, enter the army; and must have a University education.

These terms, generous in themselves, were eagerly accepted by the all but penniless widow. She had some difficulty, however, in persuading young Trevor to, as he expressed it, sell his independence. In the end her wishes prevailed. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, took honours there, and now at four-and-twenty years of age was to a certain extent his own master, and yet was more tied and fettered than almost any other young man he knew. To tell the truth, he hated his own position. Mrs. Aylmer was capricious; she considered that he owed her undying gratitude: that he should only do what she wished. He had little or no control of her affairs, Bertha Keys being the true mistress.

At the time when this story opens he felt that he could scarcely stand his silken fetters any longer.

Bertha, as she stood now in the moonlit window of her little room at the "Crown and Garter," thought over Maurice Trevor, his future prospects, and his past life. She also thought about Florence.

"From the way he spoke to-night," thought this astute young woman, "very, very little would make him fall in love with Florence. Now, that is quite the very last thing to be desired. It would be a sort of revenge on Mrs. Aylmer, but it cannot be permitted for a single moment. They must not meet again. There are several reasons against that. In the first place, it would not suit my convenience. I mean to inherit Mrs. Aylmer's property, either as the heiress in my own person or as the wife of Maurice Trevor. It is true that I am older than he, but I have three times his sense: I can manage him if another girl does not interfere. He must leave here immediately. I must make some excuse. His mother is not quite so quixotic as he is; I must manage things through her. One thing, at least, I am resolved on: he must not hear the story of Florence at least, not through Florence herself: he must not meet her again, and Mrs. Aylmer must not tell him the story of what occurred at Cherry Court School."