nduced
regret. He knew the whole story of the birth of the elder son, of the
subsequent marriage, of Mr. Scarborough's fraudulent deceit which had
lasted so many years, and of his later return to the truth, so as to
save the property, and to give back to the younger son all of which for
so many years he, his father, had attempted to rob him.

All London had talked of the affair, and all London had declared that so
wicked and dishonest an old gentleman had never lived. And now he had
returned to the truth simply with the view of cheating the creditors and
keeping the estate in the family. He was manifestly an old gentleman who
ought to be, above all others, dissatisfied with his own life; but Mr.
Merton, when the assertion was made to him, knew not what other answer
to make.

"I really do not think I have, nor do I know one to whom heaven with all
its bliss will be more readily accorded. What have I done for myself?"

"I don't quite know what you have done all your life."

"I was born a rich man, and then I married,--not rich as I am now, but
with ample means for marrying."

"After Mr. Mountjoy's birth," said Merton, who could not pretend to be
ignorant of the circumstance.

"Well, yes. I have my own ideas about marriage and that kind of thing,
which are, perhaps, at variance with yours." Whereupon Merton bowed. "I
had the best wife in the world, who entirely coincided with me in all
that I did. I lived entirely abroad, and made most liberal allowances to
all the agricultural tenants. I rebuilt all the cottages;--go and look at
them. I let any man shoot his own game till Mountjoy came up in the
world and took the shooting into his own hands. When the people at the
pottery began to build I assisted them in every way in the world. I
offered to keep a school at my own expense, solely on the understanding
that what they call Dissenters should be allowed to come there. The
parson spread abroad a rumor that I was an atheist, and consequently the
School was kept for the Dissenters only. The School-board has come and
made that all right, though the parson goes on with his rumor. If he
understood me as well as I understand him, he would know that he is more
of an atheist than I am. I gave my boys the best education, spending on
them more than double what is done by men with twice my means. My tastes
were all simple, and were not specially vicious. I do not know that I
have ever made any one unhappy. Then the estate became r