It will be remembered that Sir Thomas Underwood had declined to give his late ward any advice at that interview which took place in Southampton Buildings;--or rather that the only advice which he had given to the young man was to cut his throat. The idle word had left no impression on Ralph Newton;--but still it had been spoken, and was remembered by Sir Thomas. When he was left alone after the young man's departure he was very unhappy. It was not only that he had spoken a word so idle when he ought to have been grave and wise, but that he felt that he had been altogether remiss in his duty as guide, philosopher, and friend. There were old sorrows, too, on this score. In the main Sir Thomas had discharged well a most troublesome, thankless, and profitless duty towards the son of a man who had not been related to him, and with whom an accidental intimacy had been ripened into friendship by letter rather than by social intercourse. Ralph Newton's father had been the younger brother of the present Gregory Newton, of Newton Priory, and had been the parson of the parish of Peele Newton,--as was now Ralph's younger brother, Gregory. The present squire of Newton had been never married, and the property, as has before been said, had been settled on Ralph, as the male heir,--provided, of course, that his uncle left no legitimate son of his own. It had come to pass that the two brothers, Gregory and Ralph, had quarrelled about matters of property, and had not spoken for years before the death of the younger. Ralph at this time had been just old enough to be brought into the quarrel. There had been questions of cutting timber and of leases, as to which the parson, acting on his son's behalf, had opposed the Squire with much unnecessary bitterness and suspicion. And it was doubtless the case that the Squire resented bitterly an act done by his own father with the view of perpetuating the property in the true line of the Newtons. For when the settlement was made on the marriage of the younger brother, the elder was already the father of a child, whom he loved none the less because that child's mother had not become his wife. So the quarrel had been fostered, and at the time of the parson's death had extended itself to the young man who was his son, and the heir to the estate. When on his death-bed, the parson had asked Mr. Underwood, who had just then entered the House of Commons, to undertake this guardianship; and the lawyer, with many doubts, had consented. He had striven, but striven in vain, to reconcile the uncle and nephew. And, indeed, he was ill-fitted to accomplish such task. He could only write letters on the subject, which were very sensible but very cold;--in all of which he would be careful to explain that the steps which had been taken in regard to the property were in strict conformity with the law. The old Squire would have nothing to do with his heir,--in which resolution he was strengthened