ews, he had invited Vernon to
his house, and we have seen already that his favourable impressions had
been confirmed by the visit.

And here we must say that Vernon himself had been brought up in boyhood
and youth to regard himself the presumptive inheritor of Laughton. It
had been, from time immemorial, the custom of the St. Johns to pass by
the claims of females in the settlement of the entails; from male to
male the estate had gone, furnishing warriors to the army, and senators
to the State. And if when Lucretia first came to Sir Miles's house the
bright prospect seemed somewhat obscure, still the mesalliance of the
mother, and Sir Miles's obstinate resentment thereat, seemed to warrant
the supposition that he would probably only leave to the orphan the
usual portion of a daughter of the house, and that the lands would go
in their ordinary destination. This belief, adopted passively, and as a
thing of course, had had a very prejudicial effect upon Vernon's career.
What mattered that he overenjoyed his youth, that the subordinate
property of the Vernons, a paltry four or five thousand pounds a year,
went a little too fast,--the splendid estates of Laughton would recover
all. From this dream he had only been awakened, two or three years
before, by an attachment he had formed to the portionless daughter of
an earl; and the Grange being too far encumbered to allow him the proper
settlements which the lady's family required, it became a matter of
importance to ascertain Sir Miles's intentions. Too delicate himself to
sound them, he had prevailed upon the earl, who was well acquainted with
Sir Miles, to take Laughton in his way to his own seat in Dorsetshire,
and, without betraying the grounds of his interest in the question,
learn carelessly, as it were, the views of the wealthy man. The result
had been a severe and terrible disappointment. Sir Miles had then fully
determined upon constituting Lucretia his heiress; and with the usual
openness of his character, he had plainly said so upon the very first
covert and polished allusion to the subject which the earl slyly made.
This discovery, in breaking off all hopes of a union with Lady Mary
Stanville, had crushed more than mercenary expectations. It affected,
through his heart, Vernon's health and spirits; it rankled deep, and
was resented at first as a fatal injury. But Vernon's native nobility of
disposition gradually softened an indignation which his reason convinced
him