Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/127

 Culroyd is heir to an earldom, and one would have thought he might have done rather better. . . It’s not as if he needed money. When my brother Brackenbury sacrificed himself for the good of the family, he did it on such a scale that there was no need for any one to follow in his footsteps for several generations. Culroyd and Phyllida, for their age, are very well provided for; and, of course, there is a great deal more to come. No! I could not help feeling that he must have inherited a taste for money with his mother’s blood. It is extraordinary how rich people seem to attract rich people. The Jews, for example. . . And vice versa. I am sometimes so much afraid that Will may throw himself away on some one whom he’ll simply have to support all his life. And, short of selling the roof from over my head and the clothes from off my back, I have done all that I can do. . . I have lost the thread. . . . Ah, yes! Culroyd! I fancy I told you that for a few months my niece Phyllida chose to fancy that she had a grievance against me. A young war-soldier tried to trap her into marriage, glamoured no doubt by the title and a fair presumption of money. If I could feel that I had done anything to check a most imprudent alliance, I should be proud of the