"
The information was very complete. Mrs. Sheldon had a kindly and amiable
nature, but she was not one of those sensitive souls who instinctively
shrink from a story of bitter shame or profound sorrow as from a cureless
wound. She told Diana, with many lamentations, and much second-hand
morality, the sad history of Susan Meynell's elopement, and of the
return, fourteen years afterwards, of the weary wanderer. Even the poor
little trunk, with the name of the Rouen trunk-maker, Mrs. Sheldon dwelt
upon with graphic insistence. A certain womanly delicacy had prevented
her ever telling this story in the presence of her brother-in-law, George
Sheldon, whose hard worldly manner in no way invited any sentimental
revelation. Thus it happened that George had never heard the name of
Meynell in connection with his friend Tom Halliday's family, or had heard
it so seldom as to have entirely forgotten it. To Horatio his daughter's
letter was priceless. It placed him at once in as good a position as
Philip Sheldon, or as George Sheldon and his coadjutor, Valentine
Hawkehurst. There were thus three different interests involved in the
inheritance of the Reverend John Haygarth.
Captain Paget sat late by a comfortable fire, in his own bedchamber, that
night, enjoying an excellent cigar, and meditating the following jottings
from a pedigree:--
CHARLOTTE MEYNELL, married JAMES HALLIDAY.
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