The little applauding ha! ha! ha! with which his Lordship ended was faintly chorussed by the secretary.
"And what is your news from home; you 've had letters, have n't you?"
"Yes. Augustus writes me in great confusion. They have not found the will, and they begin to fear that the very informal scrap of paper I already mentioned is all that represents one."
"What! do you mean that memorandum stating that your father bequeathed all he had to Augustus, and trusted he would make a suitable provision for his brothers and sisters?"
"Yes; that is all that has been found. Augustus says in his last letter, my poor father would seem to have been most painfully affected for some time back by a claim put forward to the title of all his landed property, by a person assuming to be the heir of my grandfather, and this claim is actually about to be asserted at law. The weight of this charge and all its consequent publicity and exposure appear to have crushed him for some months before his death, and he had made great efforts to effect a compromise."
A long, low, plaintive whistle from Lord Culduff arrested Temple's speech, and for a few seconds there was a dead silence in the room.
"This, then, would have left you all ruined--eh?" asked Culduff, after a pause.
"I don't exactly see to what extent we should have been liable--whether only the estated property, or also all funded moneys."
"Everything; every stick and stone; every scrip and debenture, you may swear. The rental of the estates for years back would have to be accounted for--with interest."
"Sedley does not say so," said Temple, in a tone of considerable irritation.
"These fellows never do; they always imply there is a game to be played, an issue to be waited for, else their occupation were gone. How much of all this story was known to your sister Marion?"
"Nothing. Neither she nor any of us ever suspected it."
"It's always the same thing," said the Viscount, as he arose and settled his wig before the glass. "The same episode goes on repeating itself forever. These trade fortunes are just card-houses; they are raised in a night, and blown away in the morning."
"You forget, my Lord, that my father inherited an entailed estate."
"Which turns out not to have been his," replied he, with a grin.