On the other hand, ample testimony was adduced to show that Frank Bouverie, notwithstanding his wife's irregularity of conduct, had always regarded the boy as his son and heir; and one witness told how the father had held the little fellow up to look at the picture of his ancestral home, and said, "All that will one day be yours." So the Bouveries' case broke down entirely, and the ex-private soldier, ex-policeman, stepped into the fine old mansion of Delapre with sixty thousand dollars a year. It is satisfactory to be able to add that he has always borne an excellent character, and seems likely to duly take his place as a country gentleman. Of course nothing but the bare fabric and land came to him: the personalty was all left to his aunt, the general's widow, an old lady near ninety, who yet survives; and it was by her direction that the famous Linley picture once more changed hands. [Footnote 3: This lady's granddaughters, her son's daughters--the duchess of Somerset, Queen of Beauty in the celebrated Eglinton Tournament; the countess Gifford, mother, by her first husband, of Lord Dufferin, viceroy of Canada; and the Honorable Mrs. Norton, the well-known authoress--were famous in their day for beauty. Gainsborough passed many years at Bath, where his intimacy with the Linley family, then resident there, commenced. The following is from Fulcher's _Life of Gainsborough_: "After returning from a concert at Bath, where we had been charmed with Miss Linley's voice, I went home to supper with my friend (Gainsborough), who sent his servant for a bit of clay, with which he modeled, and then colored, her head--and that too in a quarter of an hour--in such a manner that I protest it appeared to me even superior to his paintings. The next day I took a friend or two to his house to see it, but it was not to be seen: the servant had thrown it down from the mantelpiece and broken it." Gainsborough would now and then mould the faces of his friends in miniature, finding the material in the wax candles burning before him: the models were as perfect in their resemblance as his portraits.]