The family was by no means a prolific one; and going into its back history it was found that there was seldom a direct heir to the estate. An owner would either die a bachelor, or if married leave the world a childless man, so that the rich lands and castles took now and then a leap, as it were, into side branches of the old family. But when the estates passed into the hands of Talbot Broxley, Esq., it was believed that they were at last settled, for he had a splendid healthy young son, the only member of his family, by the way, who was quite independent of the wealth that apparently nothing could keep him out of. He was a great favourite both in town and country, and was engaged to a charming young lady, a cousin of the Marquis of Kingslee. The two seemed very fond of each other, and were the admired of all the gossips on that day when together they rode off to a distant steeplechase. It was the last ride the happy pair ever had, for, mournful to say, young Stanley's horse shied at an urchin who had popped unexpectedly out of a ditch by the wayside; shied and bolted, and that forenoon the rider was carried home dead. This terrible accident quite broke his father's heart, and so the estates fell into the hands of a comparative stranger, a bachelor who had previous to this been as poor as the proverbial church-mouse. His only brother had died some time before this man's succession, and his baby daughter was sent to a convent to be nursed and reared. When this bachelor inherited the estates he naturally thought of the child who was then about two years of age, and had her brought from the convent to Broxley Towers. She would be the next heir, and she would be a comfort to him, he believed, as she grew up. And this child was the only one who would stand between the vast wealth of the Broxleys and John Crawford Broxley, a cousin of the bachelor, when that lord of the manor should die. As the owner of Broxley Towers was said to be suffering from some incurable ailment to which the doctors never put a name, the chance of his attaining to anything like old age was a very remote one. They say, however, that watched pots take long to boil; and just because John Crawford wished this man dead, and watched for his demise, he lived. As to the child, she disappeared most mysteriously one afternoon, and on this disappearance hinges the dénouement of this story. There was some one else watching until the bachelor should die, and she had waited and watched until at last, about one month after Frank Antony Blake had left the country, his demise was announced, and John Crawford Broxley had proceeded at once to assert his rights to the Broxley estate. But to the astonishment of every one, suddenly an eminent counsel came forward intent upon proving that John had no more right to the Broxley Towers than he himself had. For till now no one dreamt of anything like opposition to John's claim. Thus the nine days' wonder came upon the boards.