Next morning, therefore, after the customary breakfast of bacon and eggs, he forestalled Ned by asking the three boys into his sanctum. "I intended to postpone going into particulars respecting your late father's affairs until you had gained your majority, Mr Edward; but as you have already mapped out your career, I think it will meet your views if I do so at once." He grinned, what he considered to be an indulgent smile upon the young gentlemen, while instinctively they wished he had not done so; that widening of his thin mouth somehow spoilt the effect of his words. "I do not suppose you have any desire to go very deeply into your family history. Yet you had best glance over these documents after I have told you briefly their contents, and see how at present your fortune stands." "Your word will be quite sufficient, Mr Raymond," replied Ned, hastily. "My father trusted you, and that is quite enough for me." The lawyer once more grinned, and spread out his hands in a deprecating fashion, as he answered-- "You must not do this, my young friend, with every one you meet, or you may live to regret it. Your poor, noble, and generous-hearted father trusted too many people for his own welfare and those coming after him, otherwise I should have had more satisfactory accounts to give you." "Yet if others deceived him, I am sure you could not, Mr Raymond." "Thank you, Edward. I may say that I have tried my utmost to prove a just and faithful steward, but alas! I found matters in a sad muddle, which have taken me all your years to disentangle; even now the unpleasant task is far from being done. Listen, and I'll try to give you a summary of how you stand." Clarence and Fred were moving off towards the window, thinking that they had no right to listen to these private disclosures, when Mr Jabez stopped them. "Please sit down and listen also, young gentlemen. Four heads are better than two, even although one happens to be that of a lawyer, in a business of this kind. Besides, we may require you as witnesses." The two bowed and returned to their chairs. "When your father inherited the Romer estates, Edward, he was, as you are, an only child, and, like you, had been left early an orphan. "My predecessors, Messrs. Skinner and Bland, had been the family solicitors of your grandfather, and although the property was a wide-spreading one, with many prosperous farms upon it, yet it had been considerably mortgaged for the two past generations. "Ostensibly your father's income was eight thousand, but really, at the date of his succession, six thousand five hundred of this went yearly to pay the interest of the old mortgages. "This was bad enough, yet it might have been improved with care, economy, and a wealthy marriage. Your dear, chivalrous father, however, did not come from a cheese-paring race, and he was too noble to sell himself for money."