pass into their hands. He was many years older than either, and as they
maintained a constant and deferential intercourse with him--studied
all his habits and peculiarities--and sent him, from time to time,
such little presents as they thought might be agreeable to him, the
consequence was, that they maintained their place in his good opinion,
so far at least as to prevent him from leaving the fruits of his honest
and industrious life to absolute strangers. Not that they inherited
by any means his whole property, such as it was, several others of his
relatives received more or less, but his brother, sister, and maternal
uncle--the schoolmaster--were the largest inheritors.

The illness of Edward Corbet was long and tedious; but Lady Gourlay
allowed nothing to be wanting that could render his bed of sickness or
death easy and tranquil, so far as kindness, attention, and the ministry
of mere human comforts could effect it. During his illness, his brother
Charles visited him several times, and had many private conversations
with him. And it may be necessary to state here, that, although these
two relatives had never lived upon cold or unfriendly terms, yet the
fact was that Edward felt it impossible to love Charles with the fulness
of a brother's affection. The natural disposition of the latter, under
the guise of an apparently good-humored and frank demeanor, was in
reality inscrutable.

Though capable, as we said, of assuming a very different character
whenever it suited his purpose, he was nevertheless a man whose full
confidence was scarcely ever bestowed upon a human being. Such an
individual neither is nor can be relished in society; but it is
precisely persons of his stamp who are calculated to win their way with
men of higher and more influential position in life, who, when moved
by ambition, avarice, or any other of the darker and more dangerous