for the
collection of all sorts of plate strongly developed. But it was
Philip's father, "Devil Caresfoot," who had, during his fifty years'
tenure of the property, raised the family to its present opulent
condition, firstly, by a strict attention to business and the large
accumulations resulting from his practice of always living upon half
his income, and secondly, by his marriage late in middle life with
Miss Bland, the heiress of the neighbouring Isleworth estates, that
stretched over some two thousand acres of land.

This lady, who was Philip's mother, did not live long to enjoy her
wealth and station. Her husband never spoke a rough word to her, and
yet it is no exaggeration to say that she died of fear of him. The
marriage had been one of convenience, not of affection; indeed poor
Anna Bland had secretly admired the curate at Isleworth, and hated Mr.
Caresfoot and his glittering eye. But she married him for all that, to
feel that till she died that glance was always playing round her like
a rapier in the hands of a skilled fencer. And very soon she did die,
Mr. Caresfoot receiving her last words and wishes with the same
exquisite and unmoved politeness that he had extended to every remark
she had made to him in the course of their married life. Having
satisfactorily eyed Mrs. Caresfoot off into a better world, her
husband gave up all idea of further matrimonial ventures, and set
himself to heap up riches. But a little before his wife's death, and
just after his son's birth, an event had occurred in the family that
had disturbed him not a little.

His father had left two sons, himself and a brother, many years his
junior. Now this brother was very dear to Mr. Caresfoot; his affection
for him was the one weak point in his armour; nor was it rendered any
the less sincere, but rather the more touching, by the fact that its
object was little better than half-witted. It is therefore easy to
imagine his distress and anger when he heard that a woman who had till
shortly before been kitchen-maid at the Abbey House, and was now
living in the village, had been confined of a son which she fixed upon
his brother, whose wife she declared herself to be. Investigation only
brought out the truth of the story; his weak-minded brother had been
entrapped into a glaring _mesalliance_.

But Mr. Caresfoot proved himself equal to the occasion. So soon as his
"sister-in-law," as it pleased him to call her sardonically, had
sufficient