“Then I’ll go without my cart.  We must have a tour; it will be the only fun I shall ever be able to give her.”

Valentine had inherited only about two hundred pounds from his father, he having been left residuary legatee, and he was much more inclined to spend this on luxuries than on necessaries.

“You’ve bought me land, and actually paid for it yourself, and you’ve bought me a flock, and made me a barn, and yet you deny me the very necessaries of life, though I can pay for them myself!  I must have a tour, and D. must have a basket-carriage.”

“Well, my dear fellow,” said Grand, “though that matter is not yet settled, it is evident things are so far advanced that we may begin to think of the wedding presents.  Now, what would you like to have from me, I wonder?  I mean how would you prefer to have it?  John and I have already considered the amount, and he quite agrees with me as to what I ought to give to my only brother’s only son.”

“Only brother’s!” The word struck Brandon both as showing that the old man had almost forgotten other dead brothers, and also as evidently being the preface to a larger gift than he had anticipated.

“Thank you, uncle,” said Valentine, almost accomplishing a blush of pride and pleasure.  “As you are so kind as to let me choose, I should like your present in money, in my pocket, you know, because there is the tour, and it would go towards that.”

“In your pocket!” exclaimed John Mortimer, with a laugh of such amusement and raillery as almost put Valentine out of countenance.  “Why, do you think my father wants to give you a school-boy’s tip?”

“I think a good deal depends on the lady,” said Grand, who also seemed amused; “if she has no fortune, it might be wise to settle it on her; if she has, you might wish to lay it out in more land, or to invest it here; you and Giles must consider this.  I mean to give you two thousand pounds.”  Then, when he saw that Valentine was silent from astonishment, he went on, “And if your dear father had been here he would not have been at all surprised.  Many circumstances, with which you are not acquainted, assure me of this, and I consider that I owe everything to him.”  There was a certain sternness about these words; he would have, it was evident, no discussion.

John Mortimer heard his father say this with surprise.  “He must mean that he owes his religious views to my uncle,” was his thought; but to Brandon, who did not trouble himself about those last words, the others were full of meaning; the amount of the gift, together with the hint at circumstances with which Valentine was not acquainted, made him feel almost certain that the strange words, “I forbade my mother to leave her property to me,” alluded to something which was known to the next brother.

Valentine, at first, was too much surprised to be joyous, but he thanked his uncle with something of the cordial ingenuousness and grace which had distinguished his father.