some settlement or family
entail fixed all things for him. Those who knew him well personally,
but did not know the affairs of his family, declared among themselves
that Sir Harry would take care that the property went with the title.
A marriage might be arranged. There could be nothing to object to a
marriage between second cousins. At any rate Sir Harry Hotspur was
certainly not the man to separate the property from the title. But
they who knew the family, and especially that branch of the family
from which George Hotspur came, declared that Sir Harry would never
give his daughter to such a one as was this cousin. And if not his
daughter, then neither would he give to such a scapegrace either
Humblethwaite in Cumberland or Scarrowby in Durham. There did exist a
party who said that Sir Harry would divide the property, but they who
held such an opinion certainly knew very little of Sir Harry's social
or political tenets. Any such division was the one thing which he
surely would not effect.

When twelve months had passed after the death of Sir Harry's son,
George Hotspur had been at Humblethwaite and had gone, and Sir
Harry's will had been made. He had left everything to his daughter,
and had only stipulated that her husband, should she marry, should
take the name of Hotspur. He had decided, that should his daughter,
as was probable, marry within his lifetime, he could then make what
settlements he pleased, even to the changing of the tenor of his
will, should he think fit to change it. Should he die and leave her
still a spinster, he would trust to her in everything. Not being
a man of mystery, he told his wife and his daughter what he had
done,--and what he still thought that he possibly might do; and
being also a man to whom any suspicion of injustice was odious, he
desired his attorney to make known to George Hotspur what had been
settled. And in order that this blow to Cousin George might be
lightened,--Cousin George having in conversation acknowledged to a
few debts,--an immediate present was made to him of four thousand
pounds, and double that amount was assured to him at the Baronet's
death.

The reader may be sure that the Baronet had heard many things
respecting Cousin George which he did not like. To him personally it
would have been infinitely preferable that the title and the estates
should have gone together, than that his own daughter should be a
great heiress. That her outlook into the world was fair