The gentle little widow looked half surprised at this announcement, for nobody since her husband’s death had ever cared to discuss matters of importance with her; but she assented readily, and settled herself once more in her chair. ‘Well, dear boy?’ ‘I want to ask you what you know about Alfred Belassis—of his early life, I mean. You have always lived in this neighbourhood, have you not? You know as much of the family history as anyone.’ ‘Yes, I suppose I do; but I do not know anything of Alfred Belassis’ early life. I never saw him until a few years before he married Celia.’ ‘Who were the Belassis’?—the seniors, I mean? Were they not very much below your family in social position?’ ‘Yes, I always thought so. I always wondered how Celia could make such a marriage, though we ought not to be proud I suppose; and Alfred Belassis had very good worldly prospects.’ ‘I want you to tell me how it all came about, so far as you know the story. Begin with the father. How did the intimacy between the families begin?’ ‘The father was James Belassis. He was a solicitor in the town of Darwen—where the coach stops, you know. He was a respectable kind of man, but not a gentleman. Nobody knew much about him until father—our father, I mean—found out that he was a very clever man of business, and gradually put all his affairs into his hands. Other people followed father’s example, and Belassis soon found himself in very much improved circumstances, and on the high-road to wealth. He had been a careful, saving man always, and had made a fair amount of money before; and I can remember father saying one day, that he had a son whom he had educated almost like a gentleman, and who was, he fancied, rather wild.’ ‘When did all this take place?’ asked Phil. ‘I don’t exactly know when father first employed Belassis. It must have been when I was quite a girl. But it was, I think, in 1843 that Alfred Belassis first appeared upon the scene.’ ‘What made him come?’ ‘His father sent for him. He was getting on so well that he wanted his son to come and take a share of the business, and learn enough to step into his shoes. Alfred had been in the office when quite young; but his father had indulged him, and it had ended by his going off to see the world, that he might be made into a gentleman.’ ‘The world must be congratulated on the gentleman it has turned out,’ remarked Tor. ‘Well, the young man came back in ’43, did he?—to a sudden prospect of wealth and importance; and what then?’