"There's piles already," exclaimed Toney, holding out her hand, "but you are to do them just when you like. The paper-basket will be the best place for half of them. Uncle Evas has told you all my sins I expect. Mr. Diggings, will you show Mr. Russell to his room. Lady Dove isn't visible till lunch time."
"Thanks," said Mr. Plantagenet Russell slowly; he wore an eye-glass in the right eye, and slightly raised the left eyebrow. So this was the great heiress he had come to work for, he had expected somebody very different. He was not at all pleased with life in general. He had been brought up in the lap of luxury, when suddenly, just when he was half-way through his college career, his father, a lawyer, died. Then it was discovered that he had swindled his clients, and that his wife and his only son were penniless. His mother's brother had given shelter to both, and after trying several clerkships, Mr. Plantagenet Russell had by chance heard of this post, and much to his surprise had obtained it. Plantagenet had thought this would be a far easier life than mere clerkships. The heiress was, of course, to be beautiful, and he could take life in the leisurely fashion which he deemed to be consistent with his early bringing up. The disgrace incurred by his father's defalcation weighed heavily on Plantagenet Russell, but he hoped this fact was but little known, and he himself was perfectly trustworthy as far as money was concerned. Here again life had been very unfair to him, and now he felt taken in because the heiress was so unlike his expectations, her very movements denoted a youthful energy which might prove most inconvenient, and which was not at all consistent with riches. In Plantagenet's mind to be poor when you had once been rich, was a disgrace very ill deserved.
Lunch time brought the members of Aldersfield together, and Plantagenet's spirits rose when Sir Evas introduced him to Lady Dove. Here was a lady of high degree who knew her own position. He bowed low and with great deference, and Lady Dove immediately took a liking to him. She saw that this young man recognised that she was Lady Dove, of Aldersfield House, and she had heard he had once been rich.
"I am glad you are coming to assist my niece, Mr. Russell, with the many duties wealth should entail upon her. You will, I hope, help her to carry out these duties as she has had very little experience. Of course those born to wealth know how hardly the duties of it press upon the conscientious mind." She looked sympathetically at him, and Plantagenet Russell was comforted.
