Mystery in romance and in tales is such a common vulgar thing, in tragedy and even in comedy it is so completely what we demand and expect, that we seldom consider what an astonishing and very uncommon thing it is when it appears in life.  And here in a commonplace, well-conducted, happy, and united family was a mystery pointing to something that one of its best-loved members had never had a hint of.  Whatever it was, it concerned a place little more, than fifty miles off, and a man in whose presence he had lived from his early childhood; the utmost caution of secrecy was demanded, and the matter spoken of entirely changed the notions he had always held concerning his step-father, whom he had thought he knew better than any man living.  When one had believed that one absolutely understood another, how it startles the mind to discover that this is a mistake!  A beautiful old man this had been—­pious, not very worldly-wise, but having a sweetness of nature, a sunny smile, and a native ease about him that would not have been possible without a quiet conscience.  This he had possessed, but “I forbade my mother to leave her property to me.”  His step-son turned back the page, and looked at those words again.  Then his eyes fell lower.  “In her case I know not what I could have done.”  “When did he forbid this—­was it ten years ago, twenty years, fifty years?  He was really very well off when he married my mother.  Now where did he get the property that he lost by his speculations?  Not by the law; his profession never brought him in more than two hundred a year.  Oh! he had it from the old cousin that he and Grand often talk of, old John Mortimer.  And that’s where the old silver plate came from.  Of course, and where John got his name.

“We always knew, I think, that there was an aged mother; now why did I take for granted that she must be in her second childhood?  I wonder whether John put that into my head.  I think I did remark to him once when I was a boy and he was living at home, that it was odd there was no portrait of her in either of the houses. (But no more there is of Grand now I come to think of it; John never could make him sit.) Before the dear old man got so infirm he used generally to go out about once a year and come back in low spirits, not liking to be questioned.  He may have gone then to see his mother, but I know sister used to think he went to see the relations of that wretched woman, his first wife.  Who shall say now?”

And then he sat down and thought and thought, but nothing came of his thinking.  Peter Melcombe, so far as he knew, was perfectly well; that was a comfort.  Valentine was very docile; that was also a comfort; and considering that what his father had wished for him nearly four years ago was actually coming to pass, and everything was in train for his going to one of the very best and healthiest of our colonies, there seemed little danger that even if Melcombe fell to him he should find the putting it from him a great act of self-denial.