relate the one
remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in
which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement.

It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first
entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary
affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to
keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The
matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines
that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss
Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular,
must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the
narratives which are yet to come.

Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising
her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle
died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when
she came of age.

Let us take the land first.

In the time of Miss Fairlie's paternal grandfather (whom we will call
Mr. Fairlie, the elder) the entailed succession to the Limmeridge
estate stood thus--

Mr. Fairlie, the elder, died and left three sons, Philip, Frederick,
and Arthur. As eldest son, Philip succeeded to the estate, If he died
without leaving a son, the property went to the second brother,
Frederick; and if Frederick died also without leaving a son, the
property went to the third brother, Arthur.

As events turned out, Mr. Philip Fairlie died leaving an only daughter,
the Laura of this story, and the estate, in consequence, went, in
course of law, to the second brother, Frederick, a single man. The
third brother, Arthur, had died many years before the decease of
Philip, leaving a son and a daughter. The son, at the age of eighteen,
was drowned at Oxford. His death left Laura, the daughter of Mr.
Philip Fairlie, presumptive heiress to the estate, with every chance of
succeeding to it, in the ordinary course of nature, on her uncle
Frederick's death, if the said Frederick died without leaving male
issue.

Except in the event, then, of Mr. Frederick Fairlie's marrying and
leaving an heir (the two very last things in the world that he was
likely to do), his niece, Laura, would have the property on his death,
possessing, it must be remembered, nothing more than a life-interest in
it. If she died single, or died childless, the estate would revert to
her cousin, Magdalen, the d