the approach of their decay--a generation would appear of _seven
sons_, followed immediately by one with _seven daughters and no sons_.

The _dole_ continued to be regularly given from the time of Henry II.
to 1799, when Sir Henry Tichborne discontinued it. Then began the
fulfilment of Lady Mabel's prediction. In 1803, four years after the
cessation of the gift, a portion of the house fell, and the remainder
was pulled down. Sir Henry, the seventh baronet of the name of
Tichborne, who had abolished the _dole_, had _seven sons_. Sir Henry,
the eighth baronet, and eldest of the seven sons, married Anne,
daughter of Sir Thomas Burke, Bart., of Marble Hill, and by her had
_seven daughters_. Sir Henry died leaving no sons.

In 1826 Sir Henry's second brother, Edward, who eventually became the
ninth baronet, having inherited the extensive property of Miss
Elizabeth Doughty of Snarford Hall, was obliged, by the terms of her
will, to drop the name of Tichborne and assume that of Doughty, thus
fulfilling, in some measure, that part of Lady Mabel's prediction
which foretold that the name would become extinct. Sir Edward Doughty
married in 1827, and had an only son, who died before he attained the
age of six years. Sir Edward's brother James, who eventually became
the tenth baronet, married, and had two sons--Roger Charles, who was
supposed to have been lost at sea off the coast of South America in
the spring of 1854 (the claimant of the baronetcy from Australia
called himself the said Roger); and Alfred Joseph, the eleventh
baronet, whose son Henry--a posthumous child, born in 1866--is now in
possession of the title and estates.

When the only son of Mr. Edward Doughty (subsequently the ninth
baronet) died, the hitherto singular fulfilment of Lady Mabel's
prediction struck him so forcibly that he besought his elder brother,
Sir Henry Joseph, to restore the ancient _dole_, which he agreed to
do; and it was again distributed, with certain restrictions, in flour,
confining it to the poor of the parish of Tichborne; and in this
manner it continues to be distributed to the present day.

Whether the resumption of Lady Mabel's gift may prove sufficient to
ward off the fatal prediction, _time alone will show_. The male race
is supposed to depend upon the life of a single heir in his minority.

This _cause celebre_, one of the most important disposed of this
century, not only ended, in the claimant's defeat, but in his
conviction fo