"And know that it is going to the Jews after me! Not if I can help it. You won't marry, as things are; but you'd marry quick enough if you knew you would remain here after my death;--if you were sure that a child of yours could inherit the estate. I mean to try it on, and it is best that you should know. Whatever he can make over to the Jews he can make over to me;--and as that is what he is about, I shall keep my eyes open. I shall go up to London about it and see Carey next week. A man can do a deal if he sets himself thoroughly to work." "I'd leave it alone if I were you," said the young man. "I shall not leave it alone. I mayn't be able to get it all, but I'll do my best to secure a part of it. If any is to go, it had better be the land in Bostock and Twining. I think we could manage to keep Newton entire." His mind was always on the subject, though it was not often that he said a word about it to the son in whose behalf he was so anxious. His thoughts were always dwelling on it, so that the whole peace and comfort of his life were disturbed. A life-interest in a property is, perhaps, as much as a man desires to have when he for whose protection he is debarred from further privileges of ownership is a well-loved son;--but an entail that limits an owner's rights on behalf of an heir who is not loved, who is looked upon as an enemy, is very grievous. And in this case the man who was so limited, so cramped, so hedged in, and robbed of the true pleasures of ownership, had a son with whom he would have been willing to share everything,--whom it would have been his delight to consult as to every roof to be built, every tree to be cut, every lease to be granted or denied. He would dream of telling his son, with a certain luxury of self-abnegation, that this or that question as to the estate should be settled in the interest, not of the setting, but of the rising sun. "It is your affair rather than mine, my boy;--do as you like." He could picture to himself in his imagination a pleasant, half-mock melancholy in saying such things, and in sharing the reins of government between his own hands and those of his heir. As the sun is falling in the heavens and the evening lights come on, this world's wealth and prosperity afford no pleasure equal to this. It is this delight that enables a man to feel, up to the last moment, that the goods of the world are good. But of all this he was to be robbed,--in spite of all his prudence. It might perhaps sometimes occur to him that he by his own vice had brought this scourge upon his back;--but not the less on that account did it cause him to rebel against the rod. Then there would come upon him the idea that he might cure this evil were his energy sufficient;--and all that he heard of that nephew and heir, whom he hated, tended to make him think that the cure was within his reach. There had been moments in which he had planned a scheme of leading on that reprobate into