t
against Andrew's inheritance augmented to one hundred thousand, and
Selina's inheritance increased to fifty thousand.--Do not suppose that I
am dwelling unnecessarily on this part of the subject. Every word I now
speak bears on interests still in suspense, which vitally concern Mr.
Vanstone's daughters. As we get on from past to present, keep in
mind the terrible inequality of Michael's inheritance and Andrew's
inheritance. The harm done by that vindictive will is, I greatly fear,
not over yet.

"Andrew's first impulse, when he heard the news which I had to tell him,
was worthy of the open, generous nature of the man. He at once proposed
to divide his inheritance with his elder brother. But there was one
serious obstacle in the way. A letter from Michael was waiting for him
at my office when he came there, and that letter charged him with being
the original cause of estrangement between his father and his elder
brother. The efforts which he had made--bluntly and incautiously, I own,
but with the purest and kindest intentions, as I know--to compose
the quarrel before leaving home, were perverted, by the vilest
misconstruction, to support an accusation of treachery and falsehood
which would have stung any man to the quick. Andrew felt, what I
felt, that if these imputations were not withdrawn before his generous
intentions toward his brother took effect, the mere fact of their
execution would amount to a practical acknowledgment of the justice
of Michael's charge against him. He wrote to his brother in the most
forbearing terms. The answer received was as offensive as words could
make it. Michael had inherited his father's temper, unredeemed by his
father's better qualities: his second letter reiterated the charges
contained in the first, and declared that he would only accept the
offered division as an act of atonement and restitution on Andrew's
part. I next wrote to the mother to use her influence. She was herself
aggrieved at being left with nothing more than a life interest in
her husband's property; she sided resolutely with Michael; and she
stigmatized Andrew's proposal as an attempt to bribe her eldest son into
withdrawing a charge against his brother which that brother knew to
be true. After this last repulse, nothing more could be done. Michael
withdrew to the Continent; and his mother followed him there. She
lived long enough, and saved money enough out of her income, to add
considerably, at her death, to he