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But why had Tom left Waters Farm to Lesley? He knew very well that the whole estate would be hers when her mother died, for though—dear, unselfish darling—he had told her that if anything happened to him out there she must marry again, he knew that she could never have another child. Lesley would inherit Doleham Manor and its four other farms. Why start her off with Waters on her own? A sum of money, of course, should have been hers, but not the farm.

Naturally, poor Tom could not have guessed the trouble it would bring, the difficulties it would create, the nuisance it would make of Lesley when she grew up—how it would encourage her in all her oddness and obstinacy, provide the materials for her silly schemes, and allow her to set her mother's wishes at naught. It is true that Nigel had been in some degree to blame. He had never got on with his stepdaughter, and it was very much of his doing that Lesley had spent so much of her time down at Doleham instead of at the house in Bryanston Square. Nigel had not left the girl a penny, which was mean of him, for another ten thousand pounds might have got her married by now. Iris frowned at Nigel's memory.