It was good for Elisabeth to be afflicted, although Christopher would willingly have died to save her a moment's pain; and it is a blessed thing for us after all that Perfect Wisdom and Almighty Power are one.
As usual Elisabeth was so busy straining her eyes after the ideal that the real escaped her notice; and it was therefore a great shock to her when her Cousin Maria went to sleep one night in a land whose stones are of iron, and awoke next morning in a country whose pavements are of gold.

For a time the girl was completely stunned by the blow; and during that period Christopher was very good to her.

Afterward--when he and she had drifted far apart--Elisabeth sometimes recalled Christopher's sheltering care during the first dark days of her loneliness; and she never did so without remembering the words, "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem"; they seemed to express all that he was to her just then.
When Maria Farringdon's will was read, it was found that she had left to her cousin and adopted daughter, Elisabeth, an annuity of five hundred a year; also the income from the Osierfield and the Willows until such time as the real owner of these estates should be found.

The rest of her property--together with the Osierfield and the Willows--she bequeathed upon trust for the eldest living son, if any, of her late cousin George Farringdon; and she appointed Richard Smallwood and his nephew to be her trustees and executors.

The trustees were required to ascertain whether George Farringdon had left any son, and whether that son was still alive; but if, at the expiration of ten years from the death of the testator, no such son could be discovered, the whole of Miss Farringdon's estate was to become the absolute property of Elisabeth.