So one by one the new things which had seemed so strange subsided into ordinary life. Marmaduke and Marion were living in one of the midland counties. A new vicar came to Thorpe,--a short, bustling man, in all respects a contrast to Mr Miles. But it was a peculiarity of the place that even change seemed to lose its characteristics in the quiet little village; a certain dogged custom was too strong for it, or the climate was too sleepy. Little by little Mr Brent laid down his arms, accepted this anomaly, that habit, and things went on in much the same groove as in Mr Miles's time, although Mr Brent was red-haired and energetic. In the winter a visitor came to Hardlands, an old friend of the Squire's, and no less a person than Mr Pitt, Mr Tregennas's lawyer. It took Anthony by surprise to meet him one day walking with the Squire, and the young man, who had been chafed by a certain dry, unsympathetic manner in the old lawyer, was not very cordial in his greeting. "So you knew Anthony Miles before?" said Mr Chester when they had parted. "Oh! ay! to be sure! I forgot you had to do with that queer affair of his uncle, or grandfather, or whoever he was, that died the other day." "Who told you it was a queer affair?" said Mr Pitt, stopping short. "Who? Why, my own common-sense could do so much, I suppose. I always thought the boy a romantic young idiot, and it's just the sort of thing I should have expected him to do," replied the Squire with great pride. "Humph!" "I'll say this for him, he hasn't got any of those low mercantile notions half the young men of the present day bring out of their pockets cut and dried for use. They'll be the ruin of the country, sir. Don't talk to me about reductions and rotten administrations, and all the rest of it; the other's the real evil, take my word." "And you consider young Miles free from the prevailing passion?" "I consider he hasn't that miserable, pettifogging spirit at his back, if that's what you mean. You must have seen it for yourself. You haven't many clients, I should say, that would knock off half a fortune to put things right, have you?" "No," said Mr Pitt, thrusting his stick into a lump of red mud. "Certainly not many." "There, that's what I said. Generally there is some spur in the background before they do that sort of thing." "Squire, you deserve to have been a lawyer." "Ay, ay," said Mr Chester, rubbing his hands in high glee, "that's the way with you fellows; you think no one can see an inch before his nose, except he's one of yourselves. The worst of your trade is the confounded low opinion you get of human nature. I dare say the best you would say for young Miles was that he was a fool for his pains." "Certainly not," said Mr Pitt dryly. "A fool is the last thing I should have called him."