Which Courtenay accordingly did, and made it perfectly clear to the anxious listener. Charley’s grandfather had been in the unpleasant predicament of having no public legal record of his age; but fifty years after the occurrence of that fortunate mistake, scraps of documents had turned up in the hands of the family solicitor, depositaries for generations of the family secrets and difficulties, which made it easy to establish, not by one distinct statement, but by many concurring scraps of evidence, the exact date of John Clifford’s birth; and to prove, as the young lawyer was now prepared to do, that the entail had never been legally broken; that all the acts of the last two reigns were founded on a mistake; that, consequently, Squire Henry’s will, in so far as it related to the estate of Fontanel, was null and void, and Charley was no longer heir but _bona fide_ proprietor of the lands of the Cliffords. Wonderful news—more than ever wonderful that day. When Mr Courtenay Gateshead sought Mr Summerhayes to break to him this startling intelligence, the elder lawyer went to find the mistress of Fontanel, who was reposing in her dressing-room, to prepare for the exertions of the evening. Poor Mary was in a very doubtful state of mind that day. She had wept for delight and gratitude when she heard her husband’s speech to the farmers; but when she came to be by herself again, that enthusiastic impression wore off, and the fact came back to her, striking chill to her heart—the fact that her children were now at the stepfather’s mercy, and that poor Charley, the heir, was no longer the heir unless another man pleased. Alas! poor Mary knew now, to the bottom of her heart, that it was another man—a man who, though she was his wife, did not, and could not, look on Charley Clifford as his son. She knew nothing about law, nor that the deed, though destroyed, might yet in its ashes form foundation enough for any amount of lawsuits. It _was_ destroyed, and she had no longer any power, and everything was in Mr Summerhayes’s hands—that was enough to quench the light out of the very skies to the poor mother. She dared not say to herself what she feared, nor what she thought he would do; she only felt that he had the power, and that Charley was at his mercy—and behind all, bitterest of all, that it was her fault. She was sitting resting, in a kind of heavy gloom and stupor, with her head buried in her hands, feeling to her heart that she was avoided by her children, and that this day of triumph was to them a day of mockery, when Mr Gateshead’s message was brought her. He was a very old friend, and her first thought was that he had at last prevailed on Mr Summerhayes to consent to the new deed. She got up in eager haste, and sent her maid to bring him up-stairs. She received the old man there, in that room where her children no longer came as of old. The result was, not very long after, a hurried ringing of bells,