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60 But on one unlucky holiday time Miss Hope reluctanly left her delightful situation to spend six weeks with her mother; for in spite of all John Derrick's hints and planning, and Miss Hope's declaration that she did not care for holidays, Mrs. Derrick would not invite her to go to the sea-side with the family. She had the satisfaction of seeing that her admirer was quite as much disappointed as she was herself, and the few parting words he said she felt amounted almost to a declaration of attachment; so she bore the separation as she best could, and charmed her mother and her mother's circle with her accounts of the thorough appreciation she had met with from the whole family at Stanmore.

Unfortunately for Miss Hope's expectations, the Derricks became acquainted at the fashionable watering-place to which they had gone with a family as much superior to them in birth and position as they were beneath them in fortune.

The Earl of Darlington was a poor peer originally, But his extravagant habits had lessened, as far as entails would allow of it, the family property which he had inherited from his father.

The title and the estates descended to a second cousin, and as every encumbrance that could possibly be borne by the property was already