“He was alive when I left Cornwall. Dead! my uncle Oliver?” the young man said, in a dreamy voice; “and I pictured him to-night in my fancy, plodding home from the outlying lands, as hale and stern and sturdy as ever. Dead! and he may have been dead ever so long, for all this tells me,” added Francis Tredethlyn, pointing to the advertisement. “You were uncommonly fond of your uncle, I suppose, from the way you talk of him,” Mr. Lowther remarked, carelessly. He was in good humour to-night, and ready to talk about anything,--inclined to take almost an interest in the affairs of another man, and that man his valet! “Fond of him!” exclaimed Francis Tredethlyn, “fond of my uncle Oliver! I don’t think the creature ever lived that was fond of him, or whose love he’d have cared to have. He liked folks to obey him, and cut things as close as he wanted ’em cut; but beyond that, he didn’t care what they thought or what they did. I suppose he did love his daughter though, after a fashion, but it was a very hard fashion. No, sir, I wasn’t particularly fond of my uncle Oliver Tredethlyn, but I’m struck all of a heap by the news of his death coming upon me so sudden; and I’m thinking of the effect that it will have on my cousin Susy,--she’s all alone in the world now,--poor little Susy!” The ensign looked up quickly. “Susy!” he said, “who the deuce is your cousin Susy?” “She’s my uncle Oliver’s only daughter, sir; his only child, too, for the matter of that. We were engaged to be married, sir; but things went wrong with me at home, and I ran away and enlisted.” “Ah! How long ago did all that happen?” “Nearly five years, sir.” “And you’ve kept up some sort of a correspondence with your cousin since then, I suppose?” “Not I, sir; her father wasn’t the man to let her write a letter that would cost a lump of money for postage, or to write any letter to such a scamp as me, either; and poor Susy was too close watched, and too obedient into the bargain, to write without his leave. _I’ve_ written to her now and then, but I’ve had no news from home since the day I left it, except this that you’ve brought me to-night.” “And I suppose your uncle has left you a legacy?” “I suppose so, sir; it isn’t likely to be much anyhow, for I never was any great favourite of his.” “You’d better write to these lawyers, though. There’s a mail to-morrow; bring out your desk, and write at once.” “Here, sir?” “Yes, here.” Francis Tredethlyn hesitated for a moment, but seeing that his master was resolute, he brought a clumsy old-fashioned mahogany desk from his chamber at the back of the cottage, and seated himself at a corner of the table with the desk before him. He had placed himself at a very respectful distance from Mr. Harcourt Lowther; but that gentleman, having finished his pipe, got up, and began to walk slowly up and down the room, while his valet squared his elbows and commenced a laborious inscription of his address at the top of the page.