I heard nothing more of the family for some time, except with reference to Major Stewart's personal property, about £4000 bequeathed to his daughter, with a charge thereon of an annuity of £20 a year for Mrs. Leslie, the aged house-keeper; the necessary business connected with which we transacted. But about a twelvemonth after the major's death, the marriage of the elder Thorneycroft with a widow of the same name as himself, and a cousin, the paper stated, was announced; and pretty nearly a year and a half subsequent to the appearance of this ominous paragraph, the decease of Mr. Henry Thorneycroft at Lausanne, in Switzerland, who had left, it was added in the newspaper stock-phrase of journalism, a young widow and two sons to mourn their irreparable loss. Silence again, as far as we were concerned, settled upon the destinies of the descendants of our old military client, till one fine morning a letter from Dr. Hampton informed us of the sudden death by apoplexy, a few days previously, of the East India director. Dr. Hampton further hinted that he should have occasion to write us again in a day or two, relative to the deceased's affairs, which, owing to Mr. Thorneycroft's unconquerable aversion to making a will, had, it was feared, been left in an extremely unsatisfactory state. Dr. Hampton had written to us, at the widow's request, in consequence of his having informed her that we had been the professional advisers of Major Stewart, and were in all probability those of his daughter, Mrs. Henry Allerton. We did not quite comprehend the drift of this curious epistle; but although not specially instructed, we determined at once to write to Mrs. Rosamond Thorneycroft or Allerton, who with her family was still abroad, and in the meantime take such formal steps in her behalf as might appear necessary.