small bones, wheat sown in drills, or
artificial manure. No such aspirations are mine. I make no attempts
in that line, and declare at once that agriculturists will gain
nothing from my present performance. Orley Farm, my readers, will be
our scene during a portion of our present sojourn together, but the
name has been chosen as having been intimately connected with certain
legal questions which made a considerable stir in our courts of law.

It was twenty years before the date at which this story will be
supposed to commence that the name of Orley Farm first became known
to the wearers of the long robe. At that time had died an old
gentleman, Sir Joseph Mason, who left behind him a landed estate in
Yorkshire of considerable extent and value. This he bequeathed, in a
proper way, to his eldest son, the Joseph Mason, Esq., of our date.
Sir Joseph had been a London merchant; had made his own money, having
commenced the world, no doubt, with half a crown; had become, in
turn, alderman, mayor, and knight; and in the fulness of time was
gathered to his fathers. He had purchased this estate in Yorkshire
late in life--we may as well become acquainted with the name, Groby
Park--and his eldest son had lived there with such enjoyment of the
privileges of an English country gentleman as he had been able to
master for himself. Sir Joseph had also had three daughters, full
sisters of Joseph of Groby, whom he endowed sufficiently and gave
over to three respective loving husbands. And then shortly before his
death, three years or so, Sir Joseph had married a second wife, a
lady forty-five years his junior, and by her he also left one son, an
infant only two years old when he died.

For many years this prosperous gentleman had lived at a small country
house, some five-and-twenty miles from London, called Orley Farm.
This had been his first purchase of land, and he had never given up
his residence there, although his wealth would have entitled him to
the enjoyment of a larger establishment. On the birth of his youngest
son, at which time his eldest was nearly forty years old, he made
certain moderate provision for the infant, as he had already made
moderate provision for his young wife; but it was then clearly
understood by the eldest son that Orley Farm was to go with the Groby
Park estate to him as the heir. When, however, Sir Joseph died, a
codicil to his will, executed with due legal formalities, bequeathed
Orley Farm to his young