"Not at all, as far as I know. The lawyers seem to think that it is all right. Ralph is quite in earnest." "He must be in earnest," said the Squire. "He has behaved uncommonly well," said the namesake. "So well that I think you owe him much. We were quite mistaken in supposing that he wanted to drive a sharp bargain." He himself had never so supposed, but he found this to be the best way of speaking of that matter to his father. "I will forgive him everything now," said the Squire, "and will do anything that I can to help him." Ralph said many things in praise of his namesake. He still almost regretted what had been done. At any rate he could see the pity of it. It was that other Ralph who should have been looked to as the future proprietor of Newton Priory, and not he, who was hardly entitled to call himself a Newton. It would have been more consistent with the English order of things that it should be so. And then there was so much to say in favour of this young man who had lost it all, and so little to say against him! And it almost seemed to him for whose sake the purchase was being made, that advantage,--an unscrupulous if not an unfair advantage,--was being taken of the purchaser. He could not say all this to his father; but he spoke of Ralph in such a way as to make his father understand what he thought. "He is such a pleasant fellow," said Ralph, who was now the heir. "Let us have him down here as soon as the thing is settled." "Ah;--I don't think he'll come now. Of course he's wretched enough about it. It is not wonderful that he should have hesitated at parting with it." "Perhaps not," said the Squire, who was willing to forgive past sins; "but of course there was no help for it." "That was what he didn't feel so sure about when he declined your first offer. It was not that he objected to the price. As to the price he says that of course he can say nothing about it. When I told him that you were willing to raise your offer, he declared that he would take nothing in that fashion. If those who understood the matter said that more was coming to him, he supposed that he would get it. According to my ideas he behaved very well, sir."