"The affair of the property had been settled, Ralph?" "Don't talk of that now," said the other angrily. Then, after a pause, he put up his face and spoke again. "Nothing has been settled," he said. "The estate belongs to my cousin Ralph. He should be informed at once,--at once. He should he telegraphed to, to come to Newton. Would you mind doing it? He should be informed at once." "There is time enough for that," said George Morris. "If you will not I must," replied Ralph. The telegram was at once sent in duplicate, addressed to that other Ralph,--Ralph who was declared by the Squire's son to be once more Ralph the heir,--addressed to him both at his lodgings in London and at the Moonbeam. When the messenger had been sent to the nearest railway station with the message, Ralph and his friend started for Newton Priory together. Poor Ralph still wore his boots and breeches and the red coat in which he had ridden on the former fatal day, and in which he had passed the night by the side of his dying father's bed. On their journey homeward they met Gregory, who had heard of the accident, and had at once started to see his uncle. "It is all over!" said Ralph. Gregory, who was in his gig, dropped the reins and sat in silence. "It is all done. Let us get on, George. It is horrid to me to be in this coat. Get on quickly. Yes, indeed; everything is done now." He had lost a father who had loved him dearly, and whom he had dearly loved,--a father whose opportunities of showing his active love had been greater even than fall to the lot of most parents. A father gives naturally to his son, but the Squire had been almost unnatural in his desire to give. There had never been a more devoted father, one more intensely anxious for his son's welfare;--and Ralph had known this, and loved his father accordingly. Nevertheless, he could not keep himself from remembering that he had now lost more than a father. The estate as to which the Squire had been so full of interest,--as to which he, Ralph, had so constantly endeavoured to protect himself from an interest that should be too absorbing,--had in the last moment escaped him. And now, in this sad and solemn hour, he could not keep himself from thinking of that loss. As he had stood in the room in which the dead body of his father had been lying, he had cautioned himself against this feeling. But still he had known that it had been present to him. Let him do what he would with his own thoughts, he could not hinder them from running back to the fact that by his father's sudden death he had lost the possession of the Newton estate. He hated himself for remembering such a fact at such a time, but he could not keep himself from remembering it. His father had fought a life-long battle to make him the heir of Newton, and had perished in the moment of his victory,--but before his victory was achieved. Ralph had borne his success well while he had thought that