le in wonder and alarm, while he placed both his
hands on his face, as if to exclude this wicked world, and all it
contained, from his sight. I did not speak, for I saw that the old
gentleman was really affected, but waited his pleasure to communicate
more. My impatience was soon relieved, however, as the hands were
removed, and I once more caught a view of my uncle's handsome, but
clouded countenance.

"May I ask the nature of this news?" I then ventured to inquire.

"You may, and I shall now tell you. It is proper, indeed, that you
should hear all, and understand it all; for you have a direct interest
in the matter, and a large portion of your property is dependent on the
result. Had not the manor troubles, as they were called, been spoken of
before we left home?"

"Certainly, though not to any great extent. We saw something of it in
the papers, I remember, just before we went to Russia; and I recollect
you mentioned it as a discreditable affair to the State, though likely
to lead to no very important result."

"So I then thought; but that hope has been delusive. There were some
reasons why a population like ours should chafe under the situation of
the estate of the late Patroon, that I thought natural, though
unjustifiable; for it is unhappily too much a law of humanity to do that
which is wrong, more especially in matters connected with the pocket."

"I do not exactly understand your allusion, sir."

"It is easily explained. The Van Rensselaer property is, in the first
place, of great extent--the manor, as it is still called and once was,
spreading east and west eight-and-forty miles, and north and south
twenty-four. With a few immaterial exceptions, including the sites of
three or four towns, three of which are cities containing respectively
six, twenty and forty thousand souls, this large surface was the
property of a single individual. Since his death, it has become the
property of two, subject to the conditions of the leases, of which by
far the greater portion are what are called durable."

"I have heard all this, of course, sir, and know something of it myself.
But what is a durable lease? for I believe we have none of that nature
at Ravensnest."

"No; your leases are all for three lives, and most of them renewals at
that. There are two sorts of 'durable leases,' as we term them, in use
among the landlords of New York. Both give the tenant a permanent
interest being leases for ever, reserving an annua