was no longer visited or noticed by the
gentry and aristocracy of the county, whose attention and courtesies
he had hitherto received. He accordingly affected to despise these
enjoyments which he could not procure, and shunned even that society
which he might have commanded.

This is all that I need recapitulate of my uncle's history, and I now
recur to my own. Although my father had never, within my recollection,
visited, or been visited by, my uncle, each being of sedentary,
procrastinating, and secluded habits, and their respective residences
being very far apart--the one lying in the county of Galway, the other
in that of Cork--he was strongly attached to his brother, and evinced
his affection by an active correspondence, and by deeply and proudly
resenting that neglect which had marked Sir Arthur as unfit to mix in
society.

When I was about eighteen years of age, my father, whose health had been
gradually declining, died, leaving me in heart wretched and desolate,
and, owing to his previous seclusion, with few acquaintances, and almost
no friends.

The provisions of his will were curious, and when I had sufficiently
come to myself to listen to or comprehend them, surprised me not a
little: all his vast property was left to me, and to the heirs of my
body, for ever; and, in default of such heirs, it was to go after my
death to my uncle, Sir Arthur, without any entail.

At the same time, the will appointed him my guardian, desiring that
I might be received within his house, and reside with his family, and
under his care, during the term of my minority; and in consideration of
the increased expense consequent upon such an arrangement, a handsome
annuity was allotted to him during the term of my proposed residence.

The object of this last provision I at once understood: my father
desired, by making it the direct, apparent interest of Sir Arthur that I
should die without issue, while at the same time he placed me wholly
in his power, to prove to the world how great and unshaken was his
confidence in his brother's innocence and honour, and also to afford
him an opportunity of showing that this mark of confidence was not
unworthily bestowed.

It was a strange, perhaps an idle scheme; but as I had been always
brought up in the habit of considering my uncle as a deeply-injured man,
and had been taught, almost as a part of my religion, to regard him as
the very soul of honour, I felt no further uneasiness respectin