Beyond the Rocks

Theodora was greatly interested in Beechleigh. To her the home of her

fathers was full of sentiment, and the thought that her grandfather had

ruled there pleased her. How she would love and cherish it were it her

home now! Every one of these fine things must have some memory.

Then the pictures of as far back as she could remember came to her, and

she saw again their poor lodgings in the cheap foreign towns and their

often scanty fare. And with a fresh burst of love and pride in him, she

remembered her father's invariable cheerfulness--cheerfulness and

gayety--in such poverty! And after he had been used to--this! For all

the descriptions of Captain Fitzgerald had given her no idea of the

reality.

Now she knew what love meant, and could realize her mother's story. Oh,

she would have acted just in the same way, too.

Dominic had been forgiven by his brother after his first wife's death,

and had come back to enjoy a short spell of peace and prosperity. And

who could wonder that Lady Minnie Borringdon, in her first season, and

full of romance, should fall headlong in love with his wonderfully

handsome face, and be only too ready to run off with him from an angry

and unreasonable parent! She was a spoiled and only child who had never

been crossed. Then came that fatal Derby, and the final extinction of

all sympathy with the scapegrace. The Fitzgeralds had done enough for

him already, and Lord Borringdon had no intention of doing anything at

all, so the married lovers crept away in high disgrace, and spent a few

months of bliss in a southern town, where the sun shone and the food was

cheap, and there poor, pretty Minnie died, leaving Theodora a few hours

old.

And now at Beechleigh Theodora looked out of her window on the north

side--the southern rooms were kept for greater than she--and from there

she could see a vast stretch of park, with the deer cropping the fine

turf, and the lions frowning while they supported the ducal coronet over

the great gates at the end of the court-yard and colonnade.

It was truly a splendid inheritance, and she glowed with pride to think

she was of this house.

So she wrote a long letter to her dear ones--her sisters at Dieppe, and

papa, still in Paris, and even one to Mrs. McBride. And then she read

until her maid came to dress her for dinner.

Her room was a large one, and numberless modern touches of comfort

brought up-to-date the early Georgian furniture and the shabby silk

hangings. A room stamped with that something which the most luxurious

apartments of the wealthiest millionaire can never acquire.