heir. Mr. Wharton had already declared his
purpose of abdicating any possible possession of the property. Should
he outlive Sir Alured he must be the baronet; but when that sad event
should take place, whether Mr. Wharton should then be alive or no,
Everett should at once be the possessor of Wharton Hall. Sir Alured,
under these circumstances, discussed his own death with extreme
satisfaction, and insisted on having it discussed by the others.
That he should have gone and left everything at the mercy of the
spendthrift had been terrible to his old heart;--but now, the man
coming to the property would have L60,000 with which to support and
foster Wharton, with which to mend, as it were, the crevices, and
stop up the holes of the estate. He seemed to be almost impatient for
Everett's ownership, giving many hints as to what should be done when
he himself was gone. He must surely have thought that he would return
to Wharton as a spirit, and take a ghostly share in the prosperity of
the farms. "You will find John Griffith a very good man," said the
baronet. John Griffith had been a tenant on the estate for the last
half-century, and was an older man than his landlord; but the baronet
spoke of all this as though he himself were about to leave Wharton
for ever in the course of the next week. "John Griffith has been a
good man, and if not always quite ready with his rent, has never been
much behind. You won't be hard on John Griffith?"

"I hope I mayn't have the opportunity, sir."

"Well;--well;--well; that's as may be. But I don't quite know what
to say about young John. The farm has gone from father to son, and
there's never been a word of a lease."

"Is there anything wrong about the young man?"

"He's a little given to poaching."

"Oh dear!"

"I've always got him off for his father's sake. They say he's going
to marry Sally Jones. That may take it out of him. I do like the
farms to go from father to son, Everett. It's the way that everything
should go. Of course there's no right."

"Nothing of that kind, I suppose," said Everett, who was in his way a
reformer, and had Radical notions with which he would not for worlds
have disturbed the baronet at present.

"No;--nothing of that kind. God in his mercy forbid that a landlord
in England should ever be robbed after that fashion." Sir Alured,
when he was uttering this prayer, was thinking of what he had heard
of an Irish Land Bill, the details of which, however, had b