ks in the park on a Sunday
evening; and the world in that district of Somersetshire was getting
itself back into its grooves. The fate of the young heir had
disturbed the grooves greatly, and had taught many in those parts to
feel that the world was coming to an end. They had not loved young
Amedroz, for he had been haughty when among them, and there had been
wrongs committed by the dissolute young squire, and grief had come
from his misdoings upon more than one household; but to think that he
should have destroyed himself with his own hand! And then, to think
that Miss Clara would become a beggar when the old squire should die!
All the neighbours around understood the whole history of the entail,
and knew that the property was to go to Will Belton. Now Will Belton
was not a gentleman! So, at least, said the Belton folk, who had
heard that the heir had been brought up as a farmer somewhere in
Norfolk. Will Belton had once been at the Castle as a boy, now some
fifteen years ago, and then there had sprung up a great quarrel
between him and his distant cousin Charles;--and Will, who was rough
and large of stature, had thrashed the smaller boy severely; and the
thing had grown to have dimensions larger than those which generally
attend the quarrels of boys; and Will had said something which
had shown how well he understood his position in reference to the
estate;--and Charles had hated him. So Will had gone, and had been
no more seen among the oaks whose name he bore. And the people, in
spite of his name, regarded him as an interloper. To them, with their
short memories and scanty knowledge of the past, Amedroz was more
honourable than Belton, and they looked upon the coming man as an
intruder. Why should not Miss Clara have the property? Miss Clara had
never done harm to any one!

Things got back into their old grooves, and at the end of the third
month the squire was once more seen in the old family pew at church.
He was a large man, who had been very handsome, and who now, in his
yellow leaf, was not without a certain beauty of manliness. He wore
his hair and his beard long; before his son's death they were grey,
but now they were very white. And though he stooped, there was still
a dignity in his slow step,--a dignity that came to him from nature
rather than from any effort. He was a man who, in fact, did little or
nothing in the world,--whose life had been very useless; but he had
been gifted with such a presence that