When Harry came home that evening, I knew he had something to tell me; but after the first start was over, I felt sure it was not anything painful from the look of his face. I may venture to say now that he was a very handsome young man in those days; but the thing that first drew my heart to him was the way he always betrayed himself with his face. Whatever he was feeling or thinking, you could tell it by his eyes; and if he sometimes happened to say anything he did not think, as happens to everybody now and then, his eyes woke up to a kind of sly, half ashamed, half amused expression, and let you know he was fibbing in the oddest way in the world.
“I almost fell upon a discovery to-night,” said Harry. “What should you have thought, Milly darling, if I had brought you home word about your father and that estate you are to come heir to? I actually thought I was on the scent of it for ten minutes at least.”
“But it was a mistake,” said I, very quietly.
“I confess, so far, it was a mistake; but still we may hear something,” said Harry. “You have heard me talk of old Pendleton scores of times. Fancy how I looked when he began about Haworth, a little town in Yorkshire, all sorts of stories, as if he knew all about it. After I had sat out a dozen anecdotes of other people, I asked him if he knew any Mortimers there. Oh yes, yes! he said briskly, old Mortimer lived in the brick house opposite the church; famous old fellow before he got so very rheumatic and useless--had a son about Pendleton’s own age. And here he shook his head: ‘Never did any good, sir! never did any good! Jilted in early life, and never got over it.’ You may suppose this made me prick up my ears.”
“To be sure! it could not be anybody else; but it was your grandfather whom old Pendleton would keep talking of. I asked very closely all about him. It appears he only died about ten years ago; long after your father, Milly, and seems to have been tolerably rich, according to Pendleton. There’s none of the family remaining, Pendleton says. The red brick house is all falling to ruins; and how the money went, or whether there was any money, he can’t tell. I have a strong idea of making some inquiries about it. Don’t you think it would be worth while?”