Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/176

166 was to lead Enid Geraldine to the altar, a servant's child was to carry on the two proudest names in the county. She dare not let it be. In the midst of her brooding the door opened, and her son entered. His face was flushed, and he had the consciousness of some great exultation about him. He walked to the window, then turned and faced his mother, breaking forth into sudden speech. In the glow of his enthusiasm the frost of her unsympathetic attitude towards him was forgotten; like a stream let loose by summer from the manacles of winter, his voice rang forth.

"To-morrow is the people's day, mother, not mine," he said, walking up and down the room, gesticulating as he went. "Have I ever told you my plans, mother—what I mean to do when I am of age? I have dreamt of it so long. To-morrow I inherit all my grandfather's wealth; I shall be rich—a millionaire. All this money that I have never earned, and that I can never spend personally, I shall own, and those fields stretching away from the window for miles and miles—those empty fields that we never use, those woods full of nests and rabbit-burrows—the houses of