A lawsuit was commenced regarding the succession to the Mytton estate, which, for month after month, dragged its slow length along. Other evidence besides the mutilated fly leaf, but partly collected through clues which it gave, was brought forward in courts of law. Mytton awaited the conclusion of the suit with a restless impatience which deprived him of appetite and sleep. Daily labour to earn a scanty subsistence became intolerable to a man who hoped to find himself the possessor of several thousands a year. Mytton and his family almost starved while awaiting the wealth which would, perhaps, never be theirs. Mytton twice sold part of the scanty furniture of his home to scrape up money to take him to London, to watch the progress of his suit. The very flesh wasted from his bones, the poor man grew haggard and wan, and his temper more savage than ever. From morning till night he could think of, speak of nothing but the inheritance which he hoped for, and the same theme haunted his dreams. And this was a man who had had placed within his reach a heavenly inheritance beyond all price, yet who had scarcely given it a thought! A man who had had in the Scriptures the very title deeds, as it were, of that inheritance, and yet had not taken the trouble to read them. Stands he alone in his folly? CHAPTER V. Heavenly Hope. THE summer flowers came, and withered away; the days grew shorter and shorter. The swallows took their flight to warmer climes; winter was stealing on apace, and yet the lawsuit was not ended on which hung the succession to the Mytton estate! Amy's feeble spark of life was growing fainter. It was a surprise to herself that she had survived to see the winter, with increasing cares and hardships around her. But the poor sufferer had not been left deserted; help had been sent her in time of need. The clergyman, who came from a considerable distance to visit the sick member of his flock in her lonely dwelling, interested other friends in her case; many a little comfort found its way to the cottage on the common, which Amy gratefully received as a gift from her Father in heaven. A few days before Christmas, when the wide common looked like an almost unbroken sheet of snow, the rough and little used cart-track across it being entirely hidden from view, little May sat on her low wooden stool at the feet of her sister. The poor child looked thinner and more thoughtful than she had done in the spring, when this story opened. There was no sound of wood-chopping from the shed, which was itself falling into decay.