Mr. Blight was a lawyer in good practice at Canterbury, and spent his days at his office, returning to Sandy Lands to dine, and leaving home immediately after breakfast. He was a small, ferret-eyed man, always in a hurry, a mere money making machine, with a great ambition to make or acquire a fortune. At present he lived fully up to his income, a fact which gave both him and Mrs. Blight much secret anxiety. With ten children to educate and provide for, several servants to pay, a carriage and pair for Mrs. Blight, and the lawyer’s wines, cigars, frequent elaborate dinners to his friends, and other items by no means small to settle, Mr. Blight was continually harassed by debt, and yet had not sufficient strength of will to reduce his expenses and live within his income. One cause, perhaps, of their indiscreet self-indulgence was that they had “expectations.” There was an old lady connected with the family, the widow of a wealthy London banker who had been Mr. Blight’s uncle. This old lady was supposed to have no relatives of her own to enrich at her death, and the Blights had lively hopes of inheriting her fifty thousand pounds, which had descended to her absolutely at her husband’s death, and of which she was free to dispose as she might choose. This lady lived in London, at the West End, was very eccentric, very irascible, and went little in society, being quite aged and infirm. She was in the habit of coming down to Sandy Lands annually in September, ostensibly to spend a month with her late husband’s relatives; but she always returned home within a week, alleging that she could not bear the noise of the Blight children, and that a month under the same roof with them would deprive her of life or reason. It was now about the time of this lady’s annual visit, and one morning, when Lally had been about two weeks at Sandy Lands, Mrs. Blight came up to the school-room, an open letter in her hand, and dismissing the children to the nursery for a few minutes, said confidentially: “Miss Bird, I have just received a letter from the widow of my husband’s uncle, a remarkable old lady, with fifty thousand pounds at her own absolute disposal. My husband is naturally the old lady’s heir, being her late husband’s nephew, and we expect to inherit her property. Her name is Mrs. Wroat.” “An odd name!” murmured Lally.