The ruin spread around, chiefly on account of the vast quantity of accommodation-paper they had afloat, was terrible; but upon no one did the blow fall with greater severity than on young Linden and his promised wife. His father ordered him to instantly break off all acquaintance with Miss Arnold; and on the son, who was deeply attached to her, peremptorily refusing to do so, Linden, senior, threatened to turn him out of doors, and ultimately disinherit him. Angry, indignant, and in love, Thomas Linden did a very rash and foolish thing; he persuaded Catherine Arnold to consent to a private marriage, arguing that if the indissoluble knot were once fairly tied, his father would, as a matter of course--he being an only child--become reconciled to what he could no longer hope to prevent or remedy. The imprudent young man deceived both himself and her who trusted in his pleasing plausibilities. Ten minutes after he had disclosed the marriage to his father, he was turned, almost penniless, out of doors; and the exasperated and inexorable old man refused to listen to any representation in his favor, by whomsoever proffered, and finally, even to permit the mention of his name in his hearing. "It's of no use," said Mr. Flint, on returning for the last time, from a mission undertaken to extort, if possible, some provision against absolute starvation for the newly-wedded couple. "He is as cold and hard as adamant, and I think, if possible, even more of a tiger than before. He will be here presently to give instructions for his will." "His will! Surely he will draw that up himself after his own common-sense, business fashion?" "He would unquestionably have done so a short time since; but some events that have lately occurred have considerably shaken his estimate of his own infallibility, and he is, moreover, determined, he says, that there shall be no mistake as to effectually disinheriting his son. He has made two or three heavy losses, and his mind is altogether in a very cankered, distempered state." Mr. Linden called, as he had promised to do, and gave us the written heads of a will which he desired to have at once formally drawn up. By this instrument he devised the Holmford estate, and all other property, real and personal, of which he might die possessed, to certain charitable institutions, in varying proportions, payable as soon after his death as the property could be turned into money. "The statute of mortmain does not give me much uneasiness," remarked the vindictive old man with a bitter smile. "I shall last some time yet. I would have left it all to you, Flint," he added, "only that I knew you would defeat my purpose by giving it back to that disobedient, ungrateful, worthless boy."