nst this sale on various grounds: he
was in possession of an offer of more than double for the same property
in times less prosperous; he could show a variety of grounds--surprise
and others--to invalidate the ruinous contract; and it was then that he
once again, after a whole life, found himself in contact with Davenport
Dunn, the attorney for many parties whose interests were compromised in
the sale. By no possible accident could the property be sold at such a
price as would leave any surplus to himself; but he hoped, indeed he was
told, that he would be favorably considered by those whose interest he
was defending; and this last throw for fortune was now the subject of
his dreary thoughts.

There was, too, another anxiety, and a nearer one, pressing on his
heart. Kellett had a son,--a fine, frank, open-hearted young fellow, who
had grown up to manhood, little dreaming that he would ever be called on
to labor for his own support. The idle lounging habits of a country
life had indisposed him to all study, so that even his effort to
enter college was met by a failure, and he was turned back on the
very threshold of the University. Jack Kellett went home, vowing he 'd
nevermore trouble his head about Homer and Lucian, and he kept his word;
he took to his gun and his pointers with renewed vigor, waiting until
such time as he might obtain his gazette to a regiment on service. His
father had succeeded in securing a promise of such an appointment, but,
unhappily, the reply only arrived on the very week that Kellett's Court
was sold, and an order from the Horse Guards to lodge the purchase-money
of his commission came at the very hour when they were irretrievably
ruined.

Jack disappeared the next morning, and the day following brought a
letter, stating that he had enlisted in the "Rifles," and was off to the
Crimea. Old Kellett concealed the sorrow that smote him for the loss of
his boy, by affecting indignation at being thus deserted. So artfully
did he dress up this self-deception that Bella was left in doubt as to
whether or not some terrible scene had not occurred between the father
and son before he left the house. In a tone that she never ventured to
dispute, he forbade her to allude to Jack before him; and thus did
he treasure up this grief for himself alone and his own lonely hours,
cheating his sorrow by the ingenious devices of that constraint he was
thus obliged to practise on himself. Like a vast number of men w