ngeniality of character to its respected possessors, between
them and Mr Heneage Devereux little social intercourse had at any time
been kept up, though, unfortunately for my venerable friend,
communication on matters of business became but too frequent between him
and his wily kinsman, who acquired over him a strange and at the time
inexplicable ascendancy; inexplicable even to Mrs Eleanor, whose
stronger mind (had she been early aware of her brother's circumstances)
might have counteracted the influence so banefully exerted on his
feebler character.

But loving her, dearly as ever brother loved the dearest
sister--cherishing her as the inestimable companion--the faithful
friend--almost the guardian angel of his life, Mr Devereux's affection
lacked that perfect confidence which "casteth out fear;" for, strange as
was the anomaly, from some instinctive sense of weakness and
inferiority, he stood in awe of the opinion of that gentle being whose
tenderness and devotion to him were almost deferential. Motives of
tenderness towards her--a desire to spare her the participation of his
corroding cares, had doubtless their share in his ill-starred system of
concealment--and having no other confidential friend and adviser, so it
was that he became the prey--alas! I fear the victim--of his
calculating, unprincipled relation.

I cannot detail to you--for all such are unknown to me--the minute and
particular circumstances of those pecuniary transactions between my old
friend and Mr Heneage Devereux, which ended in results so fatal to the
former; but I have reason to believe that Mr Heneage, who had
accumulated considerable wealth in mercantile speculations, found means
in the first place to possess himself of certain bond debts and
considerable mortgages on the property, incurred by the father and
grandfather of Mr Devereux, as the pressure of the times or untoward
casualties forced upon them the alternative of so burdening the family
property, or the more energetic measure of wise and timely retrenchment.
Mr Devereux's legal adviser was undoubtedly in the interest of his
speculating kinsman, whose primary object was to secure to himself the
reversion of the family property, the entail of which ended with the
late possessors. And Mr Heneage was well aware that he had no chance of
being voluntarily selected as the heir of the Devereuxs.

Not only had there been a long-subsisting estrangement between the
ancient stock and that dis