end to know; but I am sure that
the young lady in question fulfilled that requirement in the opinion
of the best masters. It was not only an eligible match for Sir
Peter Chillingly,--it was a brilliant match. It was also a very
unexceptionable match for Miss Caroline Brotherton. This excellent
couple got on together as most excellent couples do. A short time after
marriage, Sir Peter, by the death of his parents--who, having married
their heir, had nothing left in life worth the trouble of living
for--succeeded to the hereditary estates; he lived for nine months of
the year at Exmundham, going to town for the other three months. Lady
Chillingly and himself were both very glad to go to town, being bored at
Exmundham; and very glad to go back to Exmundham, being bored in town.
With one exception it was an exceedingly happy marriage, as marriages
go. Lady Chillingly had her way in small things; Sir Peter his way in
great. Small things happen every day; great things once in three years.
Once in three years Lady Chillingly gave way to Sir Peter; households so
managed go on regularly. The exception to their connubial happiness was,
after all, but of a negative description. Their affection was such
that they sighed for a pledge of it; fourteen years had he and Lady
Chillingly remained unvisited by the little stranger.

Now, in default of male issue, Sir Peter's estates passed to a distant
cousin as heir-at-law; and during the last four years this heir-at-law
had evinced his belief that practically speaking he was already
heir-apparent; and (though Sir Peter was a much younger man than
himself, and as healthy as any man well can be) had made his
expectations of a speedy succession unpleasantly conspicuous. He had
refused his consent to a small exchange of lands with a neighbouring
squire, by which Sir Peter would have obtained some good arable land,
for an outlying unprofitable wood that produced nothing but fagots and
rabbits, with the blunt declaration that he, the heir-at-law, was fond
of rabbit-shooting, and that the wood would be convenient to him next
season if he came into the property by that time, which he very possibly
might. He disputed Sir Peter's right to make his customary fall of
timber, and had even threatened him with a bill in Chancery on that
subject. In short, this heir-at-law was exactly one of those persons
to spite whom a landed proprietor would, if single, marry at the age of
eighty in the hope of a fami