"Oh, dear, no," replied the lady; "the great bulk of the property is mine beyond all doubt, but the land on which this house stands, and rather more than a thousand acres round it, was bought by my poor father before I was born, I believe, as affording the most eligible site for a mansion. He never liked the old house near your place, and built this for himself. Mr. Marlow's lawyers now declare that his grand-uncle, who sold the land to my father, had no power to sell it; that the property was strictly entailed." "That will be easily ascertained," said Sir Philip Hastings; "and I am afraid, my dear madam, if that should prove the case, you will have no remedy but to give up the property." "But is not that very hard?" asked Mrs. Hazleton, "the Marlows certainly had the money." "That will make no difference," replied Sir Philip, musing; "this young man's grand-uncle may have wronged your father; but he is not responsible for the act, and I am very much afraid, moreover, that his claim may not be limited to the property itself. Back rents, I suspect, might be claimed." "Ay, that is what my lawyer, Mr. Shanks, says," replied Mrs. Hazleton, with a bewildered look; "he tells me that if Mr. Marlow is successful in the suit, I shall have to pay the whole of the rents of the land. But Shanks added that he was quite certain of beating him if we could retain for our counsel Sargeant Tutham and Mr. Doubledo." "Shanks is a rogue," said Sir Philip Hastings, in a calm, equable tone; "and the two lawyers you have named bear the reputation of being learned and unscrupulous men. The first point, my dear madam, is to ascertain whether this young gentleman's claim is just, and then to deal with him equitably, which, in the sense I affix to the term, may be somewhat different from legal." "I really do not know what to do," cried Mrs. Hazleton, with a slight laugh, as if at her own perplexity. "I was never in such a situation in my life;" and then she added, very rapidly and in a jocular tone, as if she were afraid of pausing upon or giving force to any one word, "if my poor father had been alive, he would have settled it all after his own way soon enough. He was a great match-maker you know, Sir Philip, and he would have proposed, in spite of all obstacles, a marriage between the two parties, to settle the affair by matrimony instead of by law," and she laughed again as if the very idea was ridiculous.