Had Tom but seen the unmoved calm with which Foss-brooke read this astounding tidings,--had he only seen the easy indifference with which the old man threw down the slip of paper after once reading it, and passed on to a letter of Lord Wilmington from Crew Keep,--his patience would certainly have been sorely tried. Nor was it from any indifference to good fortune, still as little from any distrust of the tidings. It was simply because he had never doubted that the day was coming that was to see him once more rich., It might be a little later or a little earlier. It might be that wealth should shower itself upon him in a gradually increasing measure, or come down in a very deluge of prosperity. These were things he did not, could not know; but of the fact--the great Fact itself--he had as firm a belief as he had of his own existence; and had he died before realizing it, he would have bequeathed his vast fortune, with blanks for the amount, as conscientiously as though it were bank stock for which he held the vouchers. When most men build castles in the air, they know on what foundations their edifices are based, and through all their imaginative ardor there pierces the sharp pang of unreality. Not so with Fossbrooke. It was simply a question of time with him when the costly palace might become fit for habitation, and this great faith in himself rescued him from all that vacillation so common to those who keep a debtor and creditor account between their hopes and fears. Neither was he at all impatient because Destiny did not bestir herself and work quicker. The world was always pleasant, always interesting; and when to-morrow or next day Fortune might call him to a higher station and other modes of life, he almost felt he should regret the loss of that amusing existence he now enjoyed, amongst people all new and all strange to him. At last he came to Tom Lendrick's letter,--four closely written pages, all glowing with triumph. On the day week after Sir B.'s departure, he wrote:--