This letter enclosed a will fully executed, by which she left to her daughter whatever property she might die possessed of, (amounting at the utmost, as she supposed, to about five thousand pounds,) and constituting Mrs. Mowbray sole guardian of her person and property.
During the interval which had elapsed since Mrs. Torrington's estrangement from her noble brother, his lordship had contrived to quarrel also with his nephew and heir, and in the height of his resentment against him made a will, leaving the whole of his unentailed property, amounting to above eighty thousand pounds, to his sister. By a singular coincidence, Lord Trenet died two days before Mrs. Torrington; so that her will was made exactly one day after she had unconsciously become the possessor of this noble fortune. Had this most unexpected event been made known to her, however, it would probably have made no other alteration in her will than the addition of the name of some male friend, who might have taken care of the property during the minority of her child: and even this would only have been done for the purpose of saving her friend trouble; for such was her opinion of Mrs. Mowbray, that no circumstances attending her daughter's fortune could have induced her to place the precious deposit of her person in other hands.
The poor girl herself, while these momentous events were passing, was stationed at the house of an acquaintance at a few miles' distance, whither she had been sent at the first appearance of infection; and thus in the short space of ten days, from the cherished, happy darling of parents far from rich, she became an heiress and an orphan.
Rosalind Torrington was a warm-hearted, affectionate girl, who had fondly loved her parents, and she mourned for them with all her soul. But the scene around her was so rapidly and so totally changed, and so much that was delightful mixed with the novelty, that it is not wonderful if at her age her grief wore away, and left her, sooner than she could have believed the change possible, the gay and happy inmate of Mowbray Park.
About four months had elapsed since her arrival, and she was already greatly beloved by the whole family. In age she was about half-way between the two sisters; and as she did not greatly resemble either of them in temper or acquirements, she was at this time equally the friend of both.