She had become fond of her people who showed her only their kindly and pleasant and generous side and who insisted upon claiming her for their own. Of course, after a time, she read and heard ugly reports about her grandfather; but she would not credit them. She thought he might have done some things which her father would not do; but she did not believe he had been as bad as people said. If he had, why didn't they put him in jail?
It was not until this last summer that she saw anything of the unpleasant side of her grandfather and of her uncles; for, after her father had been killed and her cousin Oliver had died, she had undertaken to carry out her father's agreements with his business associates and to meet his obligations.
The attempt had involved letters to her grandfather and visits to her uncles in search of aid; and quickly she came to realize that the quarrel between her father and them no longer was to be ignored but that it was to underlie all her own relations with them.
And how was that remarkable, unopened house upon the Rock—about which her grandfather talked so much—connected with them? Or with her? What was its meaning to them? She had never thought of it as having important meaning; it had seemed merely an intrusion, an impertinence. But the encounter with the young man who was going there and who had her father's name stirred new speculations.
