Thomas Lobyer the elder died within a few weeks after the writing of this epistle; and his son who was giving a charming little dinner to some distinguished friends in the pavilion of the Hôtel Henri Quatre at St. Germains, while his father lay dying at Pevenshall, was summoned homeward by a telegram, and arrived to find himself sole master of the accumulated fruits of two industrious lives. The young man's acquaintances and neighbours, his agents and advisers, were loud in his praises during his brief residence at Pevenshall. It seemed as if the old story of Prince Henry's reform were going to be acted over again. Mr. Lobyer detained the lawyer who had made his father's will, and with that gentleman's assistance he entered into a searching investigation of his possessions. He, so dull to learn any thing appertaining to the graces of life,--he, so slow of intellect where the wisdom of sages or the harmonious numbers of poets were the subject of his study, proved himself a match for the keenest in all that affected his interests or touched his pocket. He, who had been so reckless in his extravagance while drawing on the resources of a generous father, astonished the family solicitor by the minuteness of his calculations, the sharp economy which prompted all the changes he made in his dead father's household, and the calm determination with which he announced that he should make a rule of only spending a third of his income during his bachelorhood. "I don't wonder my father was always growling about _my_ extravagance, considering the amount of money he contrived to get rid of here," said the amiable young man. "Two of the housemaids may go, and two of the grooms may go. One man will look after half-a-dozen horses in a livery-stable in London, and keep them in better condition than my horses are in; and one man can look after half-a-dozen here. I shall only come down in the hunting-season; and I don't want to pay lazy hulking fellows for gorging themselves with meat and making themselves dropsical with beer at my expense; and I don't want to pay young women for looking out of the windows and talking to them. In the gardens I shall not make any changes; but I must have an arrangement made with the fruiterers in the market-town by which the forcing houses may be made to pay their own expenses. When I marry and come to live here, I shall double the household, and build a new wing to the stables, for I like to see plenty of fellows, and horses and dogs, and that kind of thing, about a place; but for the present we must retrench, Mr. Gibson,--we must retrench."