come to know Lord Culduff; and
I protest I anticipate little of either profit or pleasure from the
acquaintanceship. As for Augustus, he is only so much shrewder than
the others, that he is more cautious; his selfishness is immensely
preservative." This was not, it must be owned, a flattering estimate
that he made of his sons; but he was a man to tell hard truths to
himself; and to tell them roughly and roundly too, like one who, when
he had to meet a difficulty in life, would rather confront it in its
boldest shape.

So essentially realistic was the man's mind, that, till he had actually
under his eyes these few lines describing Pracontal's look and manner,
he had never been able to convince himself that this pretender was an
actual _bona fide_ creature. Up to this, the claim had been a vague
menace, and no more, a tradition that ended in a threat! There was the
whole of it! Kelson had written to Sedley, and Sedley to Kelson. There
had been a half-amicable contest, a sort of round with the gloves, in
which these two crafty men appeared rather like great moralists than
cunning lawyers. Had they been peacemakers by Act of Parliament, they
could not have urged more strenuously the advantages of amity and
kindliness; how severely they censured the contentious spirit which
drove men into litigation! and how beautifully they showed the Christian
benefit of an arbitration "under the court," the costs to be equitably
divided!

Throughout the whole drama, however, M. Pracontal had never figured as
an active character of the piece; and for all that Bramleigh could see,
the machinery might work to the end, and the catastrophe be announced,
not only without ever producing him, but actually without his having
ever existed. If from time to time he might chance to read in the public
papers of a suspicious foreigner, a "Frenchman or Italian of fashionable
appearance," having done this, that, or t'other, he would ask himself at
once, "I wonder could that be _my_ man? Is that the adventurer who wants
to replace me here?" As time, however, rolled on, and nothing came out
of this claim more palpable than a dropping letter from Sedley, to say
he had submitted such a point to counsel, or he thought that the enemy
seemed disposed to come to terms, Bramleigh actually began to regard the
whole subject as a man might the danger of a storm, which, breaking afar
off, might probably waste all its fury before it reached him.

Now, however, thes