. It was a
charming morning, one of those that comes to us sometimes in an English
April when the air is soft like that of Italy and the smell of the earth
rises like that of incense, and little clouds float idly across a sky
of tender blue. Standing thus he looked out upon the park where the elms
already showed a tinge of green and the ash-buds were coal black. Only
the walnuts and the great oaks, some of them pollards of a thousand
years of age, remained stark and stern in their winter dress.

Alan was in a reflective mood and involuntarily began to wonder how many
of his forefathers had stood in that same spot upon such April mornings
and looked out upon those identical trees wakening in the breath of
spring. Only the trees and the landscape knew, those trees which had
seen every one of them borne to baptism, to bridal and to burial. The
men and women themselves were forgotten. Their portraits, each in the
garb of his or her generation, hung here and there upon the walls of the
ancient house which once they had owned or inhabited, but who remembered
anything of them to-day? In many cases their names even were lost, for
believing that they, so important in their time, could never sink into
oblivion, they had not thought it necessary to record them upon their
pictures.

And now the thing was coming to an end. Unless in this way or in that
he could save it, what remained of the old place, for the outlying lands
had long since been sold, must go to the hammer and become the property
of some pushing and successful person who desired to found a family, and
perhaps in days to be would claim these very pictures that hung upon the
walls as those of his own ancestors, declaring that he had brought in
the estate because he was a relative of the ancient and ruined race.

Well, it was the way of the world, and perhaps it must be so, but the
thought of it made Alan Vernon sad. If he could have continued that
business, it might have been otherwise. By this hour his late partners,
Sir Robert Aylward and Mr. Champers-Haswell, were doubtless sitting in
their granite office in the City, probably in consultation with Lord
Specton, who had taken his place upon the Board of the great Company
which was being subscribed that day. No doubt applications for shares
were pouring in by the early posts and by telegram, and from time to
time Mr. Jeffreys respectfully reported their number and amount, while
Sir Robert looked unconcerned and Mr. H