In our firm there was no son--Mr. Craven had been the son; but the old
father was dead, and our chief's wife had brought him only daughters.

Still the title of the firm remained the same, and Mr. Craven's own
signature also.

He had been junior for such a number of years, that, when Death sent a
royal invitation to his senior, he was so accustomed to the old form,
that he, and all in his employment, tacitly agreed it was only fitting
he should remain junior to the end.

A good man. I, of all human beings, have reason to speak well of him.
Even putting the undoubted fact of all lawyers keeping one unprofitable
client into the scales, if he had not been very good he must have washed
his hands of Miss Blake and her niece's house long before the period at
which this story opens.

The house did not belong to Miss Blake. It was the property of her
niece, a certain Miss Helena Elmsdale, of whom Mr. Craven always spoke
as that "poor child."

She was not of age, and Miss Blake managed her few pecuniary affairs.

Besides the "desirable residence, suitable," etcetera, aunt and niece
had property producing about sixty-five pounds a year. When we could let
the desirable residence, handsomely furnished, and with every
convenience that could be named in the space of a half-guinea
advertisement, to a family from the country, or an officer just returned
from India, or to an invalid who desired a beautiful and quiet abode
within an easy drive of the West End--when we could do this, I say, the