Attended by such circumstances as these, the history of the family
assumes, for the moment, a certain importance. It is connected with a
blushing attorney. It will explain what happened on the reading of the
Will. And it is sure beforehand of a favourable reception--for it is
all about money.


Old Robert Graywell began life as the son of a small farmer. He was
generally considered to be rather an eccentric man; but prospered,
nevertheless, as a merchant in the city of London. When he retired from
business, he possessed a house and estate in the country, and a
handsome fortune safely invested in the Funds.

His children were three in number:--his son Robert, and his daughters
Maria and Susan.

The death of his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, was the first
serious calamity of his life. He retired to his estate a soured and
broken man. Loving husbands are not always, as a necessary consequence,
tender fathers. Old Robert's daughters afforded him no consolation on
their mother's death. Their anxiety about their mourning dresses so
disgusted him that he kept out of their way. No extraordinary interest
was connected with their prospects in life: they would be married--and
there would be an end of them. As for the son, he had long since placed
himself beyond the narrow range of his father's sympathies. In the
first place, his refusal to qualify himself for a mercantile career had
made it necessary to dispose of the business to strangers. In the
second place, young Robert Graywell proved--without any hereditary
influence, and in the face of the strongest discouragement--to be a
born painter! One of the greatest artists of that day saw the boy's