“No,” replied Mr. Channing. “It has wholly gone from us. It is as much lost to us as though we had never possessed a claim to it.” It was even so. This decision of the Lord Chancellor had taken it from the Channing family for ever. “Never mind!” cried Tom, throwing up his trencher, which he had carelessly carried into the room with him. “As papa says, we have our hands and brains: and they often win the race against money in the long run.” Yes. The boys had active hands and healthy brains--no despicable inheritance, when added to a firm faith in God, and an ardent wish to use, and not misuse, the talents given to them. CHAPTER III. -- CONSTANCE CHANNING. How true is the old proverb--“Man proposes but God disposes!” God’s ways are not as our ways. His dealings with us are often mysterious. Happy those, who can detect His hand in all the varied chances and changes of the world. I am not sure that we can quite picture to ourselves the life that had been Mr. Channing’s. Of gentle birth, and reared to no profession, the inheritance which ought to have come to him was looked upon as a sufficient independence. That it would come to him, had never been doubted by himself or by others; and it was only at the very moment when he thought he was going to take possession of it, that some enemy set up a claim and threw it into Chancery. You may object to the word “enemy,” but it could certainly not be looked upon as the act of a friend. By every right, in all justice, it belonged to James Channing; but he who put in his claim, taking advantage of a quibble of law, was a rich man and a mighty one. I should not like to take possession of another’s money in such a manner. The good, old-fashioned, wholesome fear would be upon me, that it would bring no good either to me or mine. James Channing never supposed but that the money would be his some time. Meanwhile he sought and obtained employment to occupy his days; to bring “grist to the mill,” until the patrimony should come. Hoping, hoping, hoping on; hope and disappointment, hope and disappointment--there was nothing else for years and years; and you know who has said, that “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” There have been many such cases in the world, but I question, I say, if we can quite realize them. However, the end had come--the certainty of disappointment; and Mr. Channing was already beginning to be thankful that suspense, at any rate, was over.