“I did sir; though she threatened to transfer it to you, the moment it became her’s.”

“A threat she would have found it difficult to execute, as I certainly would have refused to receive it.  We are half savages, no doubt, out west of the bridge; but our lands are beginning to tell in the markets, and we count already some rich men among us.”

This was said with a self-satisfied manner, that my cousin was a little too apt to assume when property became the subject of conversation.  I had occasion several times that day, even, to remark that he attached a high value to money; though, at the same time, it struck me that most of his notions were just and honourable.  He quite worked his way into my favour, however, by the respect he manifested for Clawbonny, and all that belonged to it.  So deep was this veneration, that I began to think of the necessity of making a new will, in order to bequeath him the place in the event of my dying without heirs, as I now imagined must sooner or later occur.  As Lucy was not likely to be my wife, no one else, I fancied, ever should be.  I had nearer relations than Jack Wallingford, some of whom were then in the house; cousins-german by both father and mother; but they were not of the direct line; and I knew that Miles the First would have made this disposition of the place, could he have foreseen events, and had the law allowed it.  Then Grace had wished such an arrangement, and I had a sad happiness in executing all the known wishes of my sister.

The funeral did not occur until the day after the arrival of John Wallingford, who accidentally heard of the death that had occurred in the family, and came uninvited to attend the obsequies, as has been mentioned.  I passed most of the evening in the company of this relative, with whom I became so much pleased as to request he would walk with me next day as second nearest of kin.  This arrangement, as I had reason to know in the end, gave great offence to several who stood one degree nearer in blood to the deceased, though not of her name.  Thus are we constituted!—­we will quarrel over a grave even, a moment that should lay open eternity to our view, with all its immense consequences and accompaniments, in order to vindicate feelings and passions that can only interest us, as it might be, for a day.  Fortunately I knew nothing of the offence that was taken at the time, nor did I see any of my kinsmen but John Wallingford that evening; his presence in my room being owing altogether to a certain self-possession and an a plomb that caused him to do very much as he pleased in such matters.