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Updated: October 20, 2025
I want no greatness or power for myself, unless it comes through the man I love; but for you, Hepworth, I am ambitious, and would rather a thousand times go to America, and share the honors which your own genius would be sure to win, as plain Mrs. Closs, than stay here as mistress of Houghton, a countess in my own right, and you only recognized as the husband of Lady Carset."
The answer was always ready, full of bitterness. The enmity of old Lady Carset had done it all. It was her influence that had closed the queen's drawing-room against Lord Hope's second wife. It was her charge regarding the Carset diamonds that had made Rachael shrink from wearing the family jewels, which justly belonged to her as Lord Hope's property.
As Lady Hope opened the door, Clara stood upon the threshold, ready for her journey. She knew that this letter was the first that her father had received from Lady Carset for years, and was curious to know its meaning. She could not remember when Lady Carset's name had been spoken in that house without bitterness, and was astonished to hear the cheerful animation with which it was spoken now.
The night arrived at last in which Lady Carset was to do the honors of her own castle, and receive the highest and brightest of the land in person.
"Let no servants come near these apartments, save two that can be trusted here with me. Some one send Margaret Casey and Eliza, her sister, here. Now leave me, Lord Hope, and you, Lady Carset. You can trust the old woman alone with these two."
It was not altogether the selfishness of affection that actuated this honorable woman. It was hard to believe that a Carset could have acted unjustly, or even be mistaken; but, once convinced of that, her very pride insisted on a generous atonement.
"I understand Matthew Stacy is to be 'A Number One' in the whole business sole agent of her mother's trust; by-the-way, who was her mother?" There was a shrewd twinkle in Stacy's eye as he asked this, which Hepworth comprehended and met at once. "Her mother was the first Lady Hope, the only daughter of Lady Carset, up there at the castle.
How would her powerful old enemy receive the intelligence that a brother of hers had won the heart of the future Lady Carset? that he would be lord of the proud old castle, which must go with the title, and mingle the blood she had so often denounced as base with that which had turned against her, with such hot scorn, ever since she entered England as Lord Hope's wife?
The man who could so faithfully render back an important trust, must be worthy even of her grandmother's hospitality. The moment Mr. Stacy had bowed and stumbled himself from the room, Clara ran to Lady Carset, and obtained an invitation for M. Stacy, Esq., and lady, to the entertainment which was now close at hand.
In fact, this entertainment was ostensibly given to Lord and Lady Hope, and the old countess had taken up the sparkling weight of all those Carset jewels, that all the world might know that they had come back honorably into her own possession. It was a splendid and most delicate way of acknowledging herself in the wrong.
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