s of their father's death at Calcutta. He had amassed a
fortune which, translated out of rupees, amounted to 400,000 pounds.
To his widow, in addition to her jointure, he left a life interest of a
thousand pounds _per annum_; a sum of 20,000 pounds was set aside for
Harry, to accumulate until his twenty-first birthday; while the
magnificent residue in like manner accumulated for young Oliver, the
heir.

Lady Jane returned to England, to live in decent affluence at Bath; and
at Bath, of course, Oliver and Harry spent their subsequent holidays,
while their Uncle Frederick continued by occasional dinners and gifts of
pocket money, by outings down the river to Greenwich, by seats at the
theatre or at state shows and pageants, to mitigate the rigours of
school. Had it occurred to Oliver Vyell in later life to set down his
"Reflections" in the style of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, he might
have begun them in some such words as these: "From my mother, Lady Jane
Vyell, I learned to be proud of good birth, to esteem myself a
gentleman, and to regulate my actions by a code proper to my station in
life. This code she reconciled with the Gospels, and indeed, she rested
it on the rock of Holy Scripture. From my Uncle Frederick I learned
that self-interest was the key of life; that the teachings of the
priest-hood were more or less conscious humbug; that all men could be
bought; that their god was vanity, and the Great Revolution the noblest
event in English history. . . ."

The sane infusion of Father Neptune in Master Harry's blood preserved
him from these doctrines, and before long indeed removed him out of the
way of hearing them. Soon after his fifteenth birthday he sailed to
learn his profession shipping (by a fiction of the service), as
"cabin boy" under his mother's brother. Lord Robert Soules, then
commanding the _Merope_ frigate.

Oliver proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, and thence (without waiting
for a degree) to make the Grand Tour; in the course of which and in
company with his cousin, Dick Pelham, and a Mr. Batty Langton, a Christ
Church friend, he visited Florence, Rome, Naples, Athens, and
Constantinople, returning through Rome again and by way of Venice,
Switzerland, Paris. He reached home to find that his mother, who
believed in keeping young men employed, had procured him a cornetcy in
Lord Lomond's Troop of Horse. He was now in possession of an ample
fortune. He would certainly succeed to the barone