etersburg, ordering the sale of the property.
No one great proprietor was a candidate for the unpromising investment;
it was sold in lots among small freeholders and retired traders. A
builder bought the hall for its material. Hall, lands, and name were
blotted out of the map and the history of the county.

The widow, Oliver, and Juliet removed to a provincial town in another
shire. Juliet married an ensign in a marching regiment; and died of
neglect after childbirth. Mrs. Leslie did not long survive her. Oliver
added to his little fortune by marriage with the daughter of a retail
tradesman, who had amassed a few thousand pounds. He set up a brewery,
and contrived to live without debt, though a large family and his own
constitutional inertness extracted from his business small profits and
no savings. Nothing of Randal had been heard of for years after the sale
of Rood, except that he had taken up his residence either in Australia
or the United States; it was not known which, but presumed to be the
latter. Still, Oliver had been brought up with so high a veneration of
his brother's talents, that he cherished the sanguine belief that Randal
would some day appear, wealthy and potent, like the uncle in a
comedy; lift rip the sunken family, and rear into graceful ladies and
accomplished gentlemen the clumsy little boys and the vulgar little
girls who now crowded round Oliver's dinner-table, with appetites
altogether disproportioned to the size of the joints.

One winter day, when from the said dinner-table wife and children had
retired, and Oliver sat sipping his half-pint of bad port, and looking
over unsatisfactory accounts, a thin terrier, lying on the threadbare
rug by the niggard fire, sprang up and barked fiercely. Oliver lifted
his dull blue eyes, and saw opposite to him, at the window, a human
face. The face was pressed close to the panes, and was obscured by the
haze which the breath of its lips drew forth from the frosty rime that
had gathered on the glass.

Oliver, alarmed and indignant, supposing this intrusive spectator of his
privacy to be some bold and lawless tramper, stepped out of the room,
opened the front door, and bade the stranger go about his business;
while the terrier still more inhospitably yelped and snapped at the
stranger's heels. Then a hoarse voice said, "Don't you know me, Oliver?
I am your brother Randal! Call away your dog and let me in." Oliver
stared aghast; he could not believe his slow