“Afther my poor sister got a trifle over the effects of the medicine, and when the baby showed as if it would live, which it didn’t at the first, for they had both been very near gone, my grandfather sent for ’torney Fagin, and bade him make his will. It wasn’t much he had to leave, leastways to a gentleman it wouldn’t seem much. There was the lease of the farm, which was valued, I think, at sixty pounds, and there was the furniture to be auctioned, and his stock. Well, altogether it came, as far as the two could kalkerlate, to a couple of hunder pounds; and that grandfather took and left altogether--God knows I didn’t grudge it to her, and she, poor dear, without a character, and a young child at her breast--to Winny. There wasn’t much besides in the will, for I saw it myself; but there was _something_--something for you, sir.” And she looked up at him with a curious sidelong glance, which struck the Colonel as not particularly pleasant--“yes; the name of Colonel Norcott, the airmy gentleman, as my grandfather called you, sir, was in the will; and he left you, written in large letters--I remember he would have it so--his curse.” Norcott endeavoured to conceal his annoyance by a laugh. “The vindictive old beggar,” he said, “and he used to be such a jolly old boy, and an uncommon good twist at the whisky-bottle! So the young lady was an heiress after all, and left off bog-trotting, I suppose, pretty soon? Come now, Mrs. B., you used to be a good-natured soul yourself in those days, and I really want to know something about my old friends in those outlandish parts. In the first place, how did the ho-tel business thrive? and--about Bainbridge; it’s so long ago since I saw him alive--never half alive enough, though, for such a fine woman as you--that its almost risky asking after him.”