Mr. Lisle had no relatives at Watley, and the only individual with whom he was on terms of personal intimacy, was Mr. Peter Sowerby, an attorney of the place, who had for many years transacted all his business.  This man visited Mr. Lisle most evenings, played at chess with him, and gradually acquired an influence over his client which that weak gentleman had once or twice feebly, but vainly endeavored to shake off.  To this clever attorney, it was rumored, Mr. Lisle had bequeathed all his wealth.

This piece of information had been put in circulation by Caleb Jennings, who was a sort of humble favorite of Mr. Lisle’s, or, at all events, was regarded by the misanthrope with less dislike than he manifested towards others.  Caleb cultivated a few flowers in a little plot of ground at the back of the house, and Mr. Lisle would sometimes accept a rose or a bunch of violets from him.  Other slight services—­especially since the recent death of his old and garrulous woman-servant, Esther May, who had accompanied him from London, and with whom Mr. Jennings had always been upon terms of gossiping intimacy—­had led to certain familiarities of intercourse; and it thus happened that the inquisitive shoemaker became partially acquainted with the history of the wrongs and griefs which preyed upon, and shortened the life of the prematurely-aged man.

The substance of this every-day, common-place story, as related to us by Jennings, and subsequently enlarged and colored from other sources, may be very briefly told.

Ambrose Lisle, in consequence of an accident which occurred in his infancy, was slightly deformed.  His right shoulder—­as I understood, for I never saw him—­grew out, giving an ungraceful and somewhat comical twist to his figure, which, in female eyes—­youthful ones at least—­sadly marred the effect of his intelligent and handsome countenance.  This personal defect rendered him shy and awkward in the presence of women of his own class of society; and he had attained the ripe age of thirty-seven years, and was a rich and prosperous man, before he gave the slightest token of an inclination towards matrimony.  About a twelvemonth previous to that period of his life, the deaths—­quickly following each other—­of a Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, threw their eldest daughter, Lucy, upon Mr. Lisle’s hands.  Mr. Lisle had been left an orphan at a very early age, and Mrs. Stevens—­his aunt, and then a maiden lady—­had, in accordance with his father’s will, taken charge of himself and brother till they severally attained their majority.  Long, however, before that, she married Mr. Stevens, by whom she had two children—­Lucy and Emily.  Her husband, whom she survived but two months, died insolvent; and in obedience to the dying wishes of his aunt, for whom he appears to have felt the tenderest esteem, he took the eldest of her orphan children to his home, intending to regard and provide for her as his own adopted child and heiress.  Emily, the other sister, found refuge in the house of a still more distant relative than himself.