nherit all those dearly-valued acres. A few lines will tell all
that need be told of the Squire's early life,--and indeed of his life
down to the present period. In very early days, immediately upon his
leaving college, he had travelled abroad and had formed an attachment
with a German lady, who by him became the mother of a child. He
intended to marry her, hoping to reconcile his father to the match;
but before either marriage or reconciliation could take place the
young mother, whose babe's life could then only be counted by months,
was dead. In the hope that the old man might yield in all things,
the infant had been christened Ralph; for the old Squire's name was
Ralph, and there had been a Ralph among the Newtons since Newton
Priory had existed. But the old Squire had a Ralph of his own,--the
father of our Ralph and of the present parson,--who in his time was
rector of Peele Newton; and when the tidings of this foreign baby and
of the proposed foreign marriage reached the old Squire,--then he
urged his second son to marry, and made the settlement of the estate
of which the reader has heard. The settlement was natural enough. It
simply entailed the property on the male heir of the family in the
second generation. It deprived the eldest son of nothing that would
be his in accordance with the usual tenure of English primogeniture.
Had he married and become the father of a family, his eldest son
would have been the heir. But heretofore there had been no such
entails in the Newton family; or, at least, he was pleased to
think that there had been none such. And when he himself inherited
the property early in life,--before he had reached his thirtieth
year,--he thought that his father had injured him. His boy was as
dear to him, as though the mother had been his honest wife. Then
he endeavoured to come to some terms with his brother. He would do
anything in order that his child might be Newton of Newton after
him. But the parson would come to no terms at all, and was powerless
to make any such terms as those which the elder brother required.
The parson was honest, self-denying, and proud on behalf of his own
children; but he was intrusive in regard to the property, and apt to
claim privileges of interference beyond his right as the guardian of
his own or of his children's future interests. And so the brothers
had quarrelled;--and so the story of Newton Priory is told up to the
period at which our story begins.

Gregory Ne