t forgotten the deference
which was due to his age.

Two years before the time at which our story will begin, a great
sorrow, an absolutely crushing grief, had fallen upon the House
of Humblethwaite. An only son had died just as he had reached his
majority. When the day came on which all Humblethwaite and the
surrounding villages were to have been told to rejoice and make merry
because another man of the Hotspurs was ready to take the reins of
the house as soon as his father should have been gathered to his
fathers, the poor lad lay a-dying, while his mother ministered by
his bedside, and the Baronet was told by the physician--who had been
brought from London--that there was no longer for him any hope that
he should leave a male heir at Humblethwaite to inherit his name and
his honours.

For months it was thought that Lady Elizabeth would follow her boy.
Sir Harry bore the blow bravely, though none who do not understand
the system well can conceive how the natural grief of the father was
increased by the disappointment which had fallen upon the head of the
house. But the old man bore it well, making but few audible moans,
shedding no tears, altering in very little the habits of life; still
spending money, because it was good for others that it should be
spent, and only speaking of his son when it was necessary for him to
allude to those altered arrangements as to the family property which
it was necessary that he should make. But still he was a changed man,
as those perceived who watched him closest. Cloudesdale the butler
knew well in what he was changed, as did old Hesketh the groom, and
Gilsby the gamekeeper. He had never been given to much talk, but was
now more silent than of yore. Of horses, dogs, and game there was
no longer any mention whatever made by the Baronet. He was still
constant with Mr. Lanesby, the steward, because it was his duty to
know everything that was done on the property; but even Mr. Lanesby
would acknowledge that, as to actual improvements,--the commencement
of new work in the hope of future returns, the Baronet was not at all
the man he had been. How was it possible that he should be the man he
had been when his life was so nearly gone, and that other life had
gone also, which was to have been the renewal and continuation of his
own?

When the blow fell, it became Sir Harry's imperative duty to make
up his mind what he would do with his property. As regarded the two
estates, they were n