“A boyish scrape I fell into induced me to run away from the college. I took refuge in a small felucca, which landed me at Algiers, where I entered the French service, and made two campaigns with Pélissier; and only quitted the army on learning that my father had been lost at sea, and had bequeathed me some small property, then in the hands of a banker at Naples. “The property was next to nothing; but by the papers and letters that I found, I learned who I was, and to what station and fortune I had legitimate claim. It seems a small foundation, perhaps, to build upon; but remember how few the steps are in reality, and how direct besides. My grandmother, Enrichetta, was the married wife of Montague Bramleigh; her son--Godfrey Lami at his birth, but afterwards known by many aliases--married my mother, Marie de Pracontal, a native of Savoy, where I was born,--the name Pracontal being given me. My father's correspondence with the Bramleighs was kept up at intervals during his life, and frequent mention is made in diaries, as well as the banker's books, of sums of money received by him from them. In Bolton's hands, also, was deposited my father's will, where he speaks of me and the claim which I should inherit on the Bramleigh estates; and he earnestly entreats Bolton, who had so often befriended him, to succor his poor boy, and not leave him without help and counsel in the difficulties that were before him. “Have you followed, or can you follow, the tangled scheme?” cried he, after a pause; “for you are either very patient, or completely exhausted,--which is it?” “But why have you taken the name of Pracontal, and not your real name, Bramleigh?” asked she, eagerly. “By Bolton's advice, in the first instance; he wisely taking into account how rich the family were whose right I was about to question, and how poor I was. Bolton inclined to a compromise; and, indeed, he never ceased to press upon me that it would be the fairest and most generous of all arrangements; but that to effect this, I must not shock the sensibilities of the Bramleighs by assuming their name,--that to do so was to declare war at once.” “And yet had you called yourself Bramleigh, you would have warned others that the right of the Bramleighs to this estate was at least disputed.” Pracontal could scarcely repress a smile at a declaration so manifestly prompted by selfish considerations; but he made no reply. “Well, and this compromise, do they agree to it?” asked she, hastily. “Some weeks ago, I believed it was all concluded; but this very morning my lawyer's letter tells me that Augustus Bramleigh will not hear of it, that he is indignant at the very idea, and that the law alone must decide between us.” “What a scandal!” “So I thought. Worse, of course, for them, who are in the world, and well known. I am a nobody.” “A nobody who might be somebody to-morrow,” said she, slowly and deliberately.