ton, entered a fine house and took
possession of eleven thousand acres of hilly pasture, and the undivided
moiety of a lake brimful of fish. He accounted for his change of name by
the favors Carruthers, deceased, had shown him. Therein he did his best
to lie, but his present vein of luck turned it into the truth. Old
Carruthers had become so peevish that all his relations disliked him, and
he disliked them. So he left his personal estate to his heir-at-law
simply because he had never seen him. The personality was very large. The
house was full of pictures, and China, and cabinets, etc. There was a
large balance at the banker's, a heavy fall of timber not paid for, rents
due, and as many as two thousand four hundred sheep upon that hill, which
the old fellow had kept in his own hands. So, when the new proprietor
took possession as Carruthers, nobody was surprised, though many were
furious. Lucy installed him in a grand suite of apartments as an invalid,
and let nobody come near him. Waddy was dismissed with a munificent
present, and could be trusted to hold his tongue. By the advice of
Middleton, not a single servant was dismissed, and so no enemies were
made. The family lawyer and steward were also retained, and, in short,
all conversation was avoided. In a month or two the new proprietor began
to improve in health, and drive about his own grounds, or be rowed on his
lake, lying on soft beds.

But in the fifth month of his residence local pains seized him, and he
began to waste. For some time the precise nature of the disorder was
obscure; but at last a rising surgeon declared it to be an abscess in the
intestines (caused, no doubt, by external violence).

By degrees the patient became unable to take solid food, and the drain
upon his system was too great for a mere mucilaginous diet to sustain
him. Wasted to the bone, and yellow as a guinea, he presented a pitiable
spectacle, and would gladly have exchanged his fine house and pictures,
his heathery hills dotted with sheep, and his glassy lake full of spotted
trout, for a ragged Irishman's bowl of potatoes and his mug of
buttermilk--and his stomach.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CURTAIN.

Striking incidents will draw the writer; but we know that our readers
would rather hear about the characters they can respect. It seems,
however, to be a rule in life, and in fiction, that interest flags when
trouble ceases. Now the troubles of our good people were pretty well
over, a