had
been about to be married, and the former old man having been given to
extravagance, and been generally in want of money, had felt it more
comfortable to be without an entail. His son had occasionally been
induced to join with him in raising money. Thus not only since he had
himself owned the estate, but before his father's death, there had
been forced upon him reflections as to the destination of Llanfeare.
At fifty he had found himself unmarried, and unlikely to marry.
His brother Henry was then alive; but Henry had disgraced the
family,--had run away with a married woman whom he had married after
a divorce, had taken to race courses and billiard-rooms, and had been
altogether odious to his brother Indefer. Nevertheless the boy which
had come from this marriage, a younger Henry, had been educated at
his expense, and had occasionally been received at Llanfeare. He
had been popular with no one there, having been found to be a sly
boy, given to lying, and, as even the servants said about the place,
unlike a Jones of Llanfeare. Then had come the time in which Isabel
had been brought to Llanfeare. Henry had been sent away from Oxford
for some offence not altogether trivial, and the Squire had declared
to himself and others that Llanfeare should never fall into his
hands.

Isabel had so endeared herself to him that before she had been
two years in the house she was the young mistress of the place.
Everything that she did was right in his eyes. She might have
anything that she would ask, only that she would ask for nothing. At
this time the cousin had been taken into an office in London, and had
become,--so it was said of him,--a steady young man of business. But
still, when allowed to show himself at Llanfeare, he was unpalatable
to them all--unless it might be to the old Squire. It was certainly
the case that in his office in London he made himself useful, and it
seemed that he had abandoned that practice of running into debt and
having the bills sent down to Llanfeare which he had adopted early in
his career.

During all this time the old Squire was terribly troubled about
the property. His will was always close at his hand. Till Isabel
was twenty-one this will had always been in Henry's favour,--with
a clause, however, that a certain sum of money which the Squire
possessed should go to her. Then in his disgust towards his nephew he
changed his purpose, and made another will in Isabel's favour. This
remained in exi