while. I say, old chap, didn't you think I clapped on a good
sum for your trouble when I offered you the management of Verner's
Pride?"

"I did," answered Lionel.

"Ay! I was in your debt; am in it still. Careless as I am, I thought of
it now and then."

"I do not understand you," said Lionel. "In what way are you in my
debt?"

"Let it go for now," returned John. "I may tell you some time, perhaps.
When shall you take up your abode here?"

Lionel smiled. "I will not invade you without warning. You and I will
take counsel together, John, and discuss plans and expediencies."

"I suppose you'll be for setting about your improvements now?"

"Yes," answered Lionel, his tone changing to one of deep seriousness,
not to say reverence. "Without loss of time."

"I told you they could wait until you came into the estate. It has not
been long first, you see."

"No; but I never looked for it," said Lionel.

"Ah! Things turn up that we don't look for," concluded John Massingbird,
smoking on as serenely as though he had come into an estate, instead of
having lost one. "There'll be bonfires all over the place to-night,
Lionel--left-handed compliment to me. Here comes Luke Roy. I told him to
be here this morning. What nuts this will be for old Roy to crack! He
has been fit to stick me, ever since I refused him the management of
Verner's Pride."

CHAPTER XC.

LIGHT THROWN ON OBSCURITY.

And so, the trouble and the uncertainty, the ups and the downs, the
turnings out and changes were at an end, and Lionel Verner was at
rest--at rest so far as rest can be, in this lower world. He was
reinstalled at Verner's Pride, its undisputed master; never again to be
sent forth from it during life.

He had not done as John Massingbird did--gone right in, the first day,
and taken up his place, _sans ceremonie_, without word and without
apology, at the table's head, leaving John to take his at the side or
the foot, or where he could. Quite the contrary. Lionel's refinement of
mind, his almost sensitive consideration for the feelings of others,
clung to him now, as it always had done, as it always would do, and he
was chary of disturbing John Massingbird too early in his sway of the
internal economy of Verner's Pride. It had to be done, however; and John
Massingbird remained on with him, his guest.

All that had passed; and the spring of the year was growing late. The
codicil had been proved; the neighbourhood had tendered the