communicated by a winding staircase with a chamber above, to which Philip
had been wont to betake himself whenever he returned late, and over-
exhilarated, from some rural feast crowning a hard day's hunt. Above a
quaint, old-fashioned bureau of Dutch workmanship (which Philip had
picked up at a sale in the earlier years of his marriage) was a portrait
of Catherine taken in the bloom of her youth. On a peg on the door that
led to the staircase, still hung his rough driving coat. The window
commanded the view of the paddock in which the worn-out hunter or the
unbroken colt grazed at will. Around the walls of the "study"--
(a strange misnomer!)--hung prints of celebrated fox-hunts and renowned
steeple-chases: guns, fishing-rods, and foxes' brushes, ranged with a
sportsman's neatness, supplied the place of books. On the mantelpiece
lay a cigar-case, a well-worn volume on the Veterinary Art, and the last
number of the Sporting Magazine. And in the room--thus witnessing of the
hardy, masculine, rural life, that had passed away--sallow, stooping,
town-worn, sat, I say, Robert Beaufort, the heir-at-law,--alone: for the
very day of the death he had remanded his son home with the letter that
announced to his wife the change in their fortunes, and directed her to
send his lawyer post-haste to the house of death. The bureau, and the
drawers, and the boxes which contained the papers of the deceased were
open; their contents had been ransacked; no certificate of the private
marriage, no hint of such an event; not a paper found to signify the last
wishes of the rich dead man.

He had died, and made no sign. Mr. Robert Beaufort's countenance was
still and composed.

A knock at the door was heard; the lawyer entered.

"Sir, the undertakers are here, and Mr. Greaves has ordered the bells to