ng reply. When I wrote to you it was true that
my father had made arrangements for purchasing on my
behalf the reversion to the property. That it was so you
doubtless were aware from your own personal knowledge
of the affairs of Mr. Ralph Newton. Whether that sale
was or was not legally completed I do not know. Probably
not;--and in regard to my own interests it is to be hoped
that it was not completed. But in any event the whole
Newton property will pass to your late ward, as my father
certainly made no such will as would convey it to me even
if the sale were complete.

It is a sad time for explaining all this, when the body of
my poor father is still lying unburied in the house, and
when, as you may imagine, I am ill-fitted to think of
matters of business; but, after what has passed between
us, I conceive myself bound to explain to you that I wrote
my last letter under a false impression, and that I can
make no such claim to Miss Bonner's favour as I then set
up. I am houseless and nameless, and for aught I yet know
to the contrary, absolutely penniless. The blow has hit
me very hard. I have lost my fortune, which I can bear;
I have lost whatever chance I had of gaining your niece's
hand, which I must learn to bear; and I have lost the
kindest father a man ever had,--which is unbearable.

Yours very faithfully,

RALPH NEWTON (so called).

If it be thought that there was something in the letter which should
have been suppressed,--the allusion, for instance, to the possible
but most improbable loss of his father's private means, and his
morbid denial of his own right to a name which he had always borne,
a right which no one would deny him,--it must be remembered that
the circumstances of the hour bore very heavily on him, and that it
was hardly possible that he should not nurse the grievance which
afflicted him. Had he not been alone in these hours he might have
carried himself more bravely. As it was, he struggled hard to carry
himself well. If no one had ever been told how nearly successful the
Squire had been in his struggle to gain the power of leaving the
estate to his son, had there been nothing of the triumph of victory,
he could have left the house in which he had lived and the position
which he had filled almost without sorrow,--certainly without
lamentation. In the midst of calamities caused by the loss of
fortune, it is the k