e would be no doubt about his Ralph's marriage
when once it should be known that his Ralph was the heir to Newton.
The bar sinister would matter but little then;--would be clean
forgotten. His mind had been full of all this as he had come up
to London. It had all been settled. He had decided upon ignoring
altogether those cautions which his son and nephew and lawyer had
croaked into his ears. This legitimate heir was a ruined spendthrift,
who had no alternative but to raise money, no ambition but to spend
money, no pursuit but to waste money. His temperament was so sanguine
that when he entered Mr. Carey's office he had hardly doubted. Now
everything had been upset, and he was cast down from triumph into an
abyss of despondency by two lines from this wretched, meaningless,
poor-spirited spendthrift! "I believe he'd take a pleasure in seeing
the property going to the dogs, merely to spite me," said the Squire
to his son, as soon as he reached home,--having probably forgotten
his former idea, that his nephew was determined, with the pertinacity
of a patient, far-sighted Jew money-lender, to wring from him the
last possible shilling.

Ralph, who was not the heir, was of his nature so just, that he could
not hear an accusation which he did not believe to be true, without
protesting against it. The Squire had called the heir a spiritless
spendthrift, and a malicious evil-doer, intent upon ruining the
estate, and a grasping Jew, all in the same breath.

"I think you are hard upon him, sir," said the son to the father.

"Of course you think so. At any rate you'll say so," said the Squire.
"One would suppose I was thinking only of myself to hear you talk."

"I know what you're thinking of," said Ralph slowly; "and I know how
much I owe you."

"I sometimes think that you ought to curse me," said the Squire.

After this, at this moment, with such words ringing in his ears,
Ralph found it to be impossible to expostulate with his father. He
could only take his father's arm, and whisper a soft feminine word or
two. He would be as happy as the day was long, if only he could see
his father happy.

"I can never be happy till I have placed you where you would have
been," said the Squire. "The gods are just, and our pleasant vices
make instruments to scourge us." He did not quote the line to
himself, but the purport of it hung heavy on him. And yet he thought
it hard that because he had money in his pocket he could not
altogethe