‘“It is also my desire, which I hereby request my said executors to carry out, that my sons should receive respectively a yearly allowance of two hundred pounds. I do this with the object of affording to my boys the opportunity of working their own way, and developing their own characters in a struggle with the world, such as every one of their kindred from the earliest time has had to do, and has done, with a success of which their own present position is a proof. If they shrink from the trial I put upon them, they will be the first of their name who have ever done so. As to the final distribution of the property, in order that no untimely revelation may be made, I request my executors to retain my will in their possession unopened until the day I have mentioned,--the seventh anniversary of my decease.”’ Up to this moment all the audience had listened breathless, with a mixture of wonder, dismay, and alarm, to this extraordinary document. It is a mild statement of the case to say that it took them by surprise. The boys themselves rose up one after the other to bear the shock which came upon them so unexpectedly, and bore it like men, holding their breath, and clenching their hands to give no outward expression. Ben was the foremost of the three, and it was with him that the struggle was hardest. His pride was wounded to the quick, and it was strong within him. He was wounded, too, in his love and respect for his father, of whose justice and goodness he had never for a moment till now entertained a doubt. And then he was ruined,--so he thought. For the first moment he was stunned by the blow. Seven years! Half a man’s life,--half of the brightest part of his life,--the flower and cream of his existence. By this time dreams had begun to steal into his heart unawares,--dreams half inarticulate of the life which his father’s heir, the reigning Renton of Renton, would naturally lead, tinged with all tender regrets, and loyal to all memories, but still his own life, master of himself and his lands and of the position his forefathers had made for him. It was not possible that he should be unaware that few young men in England would be better endowed, or have a better start in the world than he. Everything was open to him,--a political career, if he chose, the power of wealth, the thrill of independence, and all the hopes of happiness which move a young man. Even while these visions formed in his mind, they were struck by this sharp stroke of reality, and faded away. He grew pale; the muscles tightened round his mouth; a heavy damp came on his forehead. At one time the room reeled round with him,--a mist of pale eager faces, through which that monotonous voice rose. He was the foremost, and he did not see his brothers. He did not even think of them, it must be confessed. The blow was hardest to him, and he thought of himself.