To acknowledge his nephew. For he had the sense to see that no other resource would be left him. He did it with a tolerably good grace, but in a reserved cold kind of manner. Folding up the letter, he asked a few questions which young Anthony freely answered, and gave a brief account of the past. "And Basil--your father--is dead, you say! Has been dead four weeks. This letter, I see, is dated Christmas Day." "It was on Christmas Day he wrote it, uncle. Yes, nearly four weeks have elapsed since his death: it took place on the fourteenth of January; his wife, my dear mother, had died on the same day six years before. That was curious, was it not? I had meant to come over here immediately, as he charged me to do; but there were many matters of business to be settled, and I could not get away until now." "Have you come over for any particular purpose?" coldly asked Mr. Castlemaine. "I have come to stay, Uncle James. To take possession of my inheritance." "Of your inheritance?" "The estate of Greylands' Rest." "Greylands' Rest is not yours," said Mr. Castlemaine. "My father informed me that it was. He brought me up to no profession: he always said that Greylands' Rest would be mine at his own death; that he should come into it himself at the death of his father, and thence it would descend to me. To make all sure, he left it to me in his will. And, as I have mentioned to you, we did not hear my grandfather was dead until close upon last Christmas. Had my father known it in the summer, he would have come over to put in his claim: he was in sufficiently good health then." "It is a pity you should have come so far on a fruitless errand, young man. Listen. When your father, Basil, abandoned his home here in his youth, he forfeited all claim to the inheritance. He asked for his portion, and had it; he took it away with him and stayed away; stayed away for nigh upon forty years. What claim does he suppose that sort of conduct gave him on my father's affection, that he should leave to him Greylands' Rest?" "He always said his father would leave it to no one but him: that he knew it and, was sure of it." "What my father might have done had Basil come back during his lifetime, I cannot pretend to say: neither is it of any consequence to guess at it now. Basil did not come back, and, therefore, you cannot be surprised that he missed Greylands' Rest; that the old father left it to his second son--myself--instead of to him." "But did he leave it to you, uncle?" "A superfluous question, young man. I succeeded to it, and am here in possession of it." "I am told that there are doubts upon the point abroad," returned Anthony, speaking in the same pleasant tone, but with straightforward candour. "Doubts upon what point?" haughtily demanded Mr. Castlemaine.