CHAPTER IV. Probably of all the persons in Oldchester who knew or cared anything about the death of George Cheffington, May was the only one who did not immediately begin to make some calculations based on that event. The contingency of her father's succeeding to the family honours had not occurred to her. And her thoughts and feelings were now occupied with other things. But Oldchester gossips discussed it with gusto; or, at least, that small minority of them who interested themselves in the fortunes of the Castlecombe family. The old lord was little personally known in Oldchester, and the city had long outgrown any sense of the overweening importance of a Viscount Castlecombe of Combe Park, which it might have had a century earlier. To most of the rich manufacturers of the place (whether they really thought themselves "as good as a lord" or not) a lord whom they never beheld, and into whose house neither they nor their children had the remotest chance of being admitted, was, at any rate, genuinely uninteresting. In the rural parts of the county it was otherwise. People there could not be indifferent to the domestic history of a large land-owner who resided during the greater part of the year on his estate. In many a country dwelling, from luxurious mansions down to mere labourers' cottages, George Cheffington's untimely death was canvassed. From a matrimonial point of view he had been considered the best match in the county, and dowagers with daughters to marry had looked forward to the time (often spoken of, but always postponed) when he should give up his colonial appointment, settle down on his inheritance, and choose a wife. And there was a large number of persons (tenants and dependents) to whom the heir's character and conduct were matters of deep importance. To these, Mr. Lucius Cheffington suddenly became an interesting personage. Lucius had been very little at Combe Park since his boyhood, and the report which gradually spread in the neighbourhood that he was a chronic invalid, was received with many head-shakings and long faces. It seemed impossible that a Cheffington should be delicate or weakly. "Look at the old lord," people said; "why, he was sound and tough as a yew-tree!" And the last time Mr. George was at home he had proved himself a true chip of the old block by out-riding, out-walking, and out-cricketing all his contemporaries. But that was years ago. Now George was stricken down in his strength, Lucius lay ill of a low fever in London, and Lord Castlecombe sat lonely and sorrow-laden in the home of his fathers.