“A letter that looks like business,” Mr. Duberly said, as his son-in-law opened a missive of large dimensions, sealed with a big seal, and altogether portentous of aspect. “From the lawyers,” continued the old man, “ain’t it?” Mr. Duberly took a great and very natural interest in the law-suit which was in progress between Lady Millicent Vavasour and her next heir. He did not like, or, rather, he did positively dislike the haughty woman who had never treated _him_ with the simple civility due from one educated individual to another, and who now, in old Dub’s opinion, was conducting herself not only with a very blamable absence of natural motherly feeling, but with what the good man considered in the light of something very like dishonesty. According to his old-fashioned ideas, the will of a dead man was a sacred thing, a document not to be lightly set aside, and, above all, not to be set aside for reasons of cupidity, self-interest, or love of power on the part of the pleader. In his opinion there were stringent and reciprocal duties, binding alike the parent and the child; and that foolish, prejudiced old Dub could as little understand Lady Millicent’s conduct towards her offspring, as he could excuse her disrespectful and aggressive acts as regarded the dead earl her father. Without being possessed of any inordinate fondness for wealth, Andrew Duberly was nevertheless keenly desirous that Lady Millicent should not succeed in the difficult and arduous task that she had undertaken. He was entirely ignorant of the points of law which might or might not be brought to bear favourably on her case, and was well aware that, in the event of her obtaining judgment in her favour, Arthur’s mother would certainly not be inclined to treat her eldest son with any marked liberality. But it was not for that cause--or, rather, to be entirely honest--it was not for that cause only, that Andrew Duberly hoped and trusted that Earl Gillingham’s will should remain _in statu quo_, and that milady should, to use his own expression, be pulled down a peg from the high horse she was so fond of mounting. The real reason for the fervour of zeal into which he had worked himself might be sought for, however, as is so often the case, in personal motives. Lady Millicent had wounded and mortified both himself and the child he loved; which being the case, it was only natural that the old millionaire, excellent Christian though he was, should have viewed with complacency the possible chances of her discomfiture.