he power of willing the estate as we
pleased, and I am strongly against devising it to Chillingly Gordon.
It may be a crotchet of mine, but one which I think you share, that the
owner of English soil should have a son's love for the native land, and
Gordon will never have that. I think, too, that it will be best for his
own career, and for the establishment of a frank understanding between
us and himself, that he should be fairly told that he would not be
benefited in the event of our death. Twenty thousand pounds given to him
now would be a greater boon to him than ten times the sum twenty years
later. With that at his command, he can enter Parliament, and have an
income, added to what he now possesses, if modest, still sufficient to
make him independent of a minister's patronage.

Pray humour me, my dearest father, in the proposition I venture to
submit to you.

Your affectionate son, KENELM.

FROM SIR PETER CHILLINGLY TO KENELM CHILLINGLY.

MY DEAR BOY,--You are not worthy to be a Chillingly; you are decidedly
warm-blooded: never was a load lifted off a man's mind with a gentler
hand. Yes, I have wished to cut off the entail and resettle the
property; but, as it was eminently to my advantage to do so, I shrank
from asking it, though eventually it would be almost as much to your own
advantage. What with the purchase I made of the Faircleuch lands--which
I could only effect by money borrowed at high interest on my personal
security, and paid off by yearly instalments, eating largely into
income--and the old mortgages, etc., I own I have been pinched of late
years. But what rejoices me the most is the power to make homes for our
honest labourers more comfortable, and nearer to their work, which last
is the chief point, for the old cottages in themselves are not bad; the
misfortune is, when you build an extra room for the children, the silly
people let it out to a lodger.

My dear boy, I am very much touched by your wish to increase your
mother's jointure,--a very proper wish, independently of filial feeling,
for she brought to the estate a very pretty fortune, which, the trustees
consented to my investing in land; and though the land completed our
ring-fence, it does not bring in two per cent, and the conditions of
the entail limited the right of jointure to an amount below that which a
widowed Lady Chillingly may fairly expect.

I care more about the provision on these points than I do for the
interests of