At that hour Fate chose to play with him.  A widowed aunt, widely separated by nature, and more widely by marriage, from all that Midmore’s mother had ever been or desired to be, died and left him possessions.  Mrs. Midmore, having that summer embraced a creed which denied the existence of death, naturally could not stoop to burial; but Midmore had to leave London for the dank country at a season when Social Regeneration works best through long, cushioned conferences, two by two, after tea.  There he faced the bracing ritual of the British funeral, and was wept at across the raw grave by an elderly coffin-shaped female with a long nose, who called him ‘Master Frankie’; and there he was congratulated behind an echoing top-hat by a man he mistook for a mute, who turned out to be his aunt’s lawyer.  He wrote his mother next day, after a bright account of the funeral: 

’So far as I can understand, she has left me between four and five hundred a year.  It all comes from Ther Land, as they call it down here.  The unspeakable attorney, Sperrit, and a green-eyed daughter, who hums to herself as she tramps but is silent on all subjects except “huntin’,” insisted on taking me to see it.  Ther Land is brown and green in alternate slabs like chocolate and pistachio cakes, speckled with occasional peasants who do not utter.  In case it should not be wet enough there is a wet brook in the middle of it.  Ther House is by the brook.  I shall look into it later.  If there should be any little memento of Jenny that you care for, let me know.  Didn’t you tell me that mid-Victorian furniture is coming into the market again?  Jenny’s old maid—­it is called Rhoda Dolbie—­tells me that Jenny promised it thirty pounds a year.  The will does not.  Hence, I suppose, the tears at the funeral.  But that is close on ten per cent of the income.  I fancy Jenny has destroyed all her private papers and records of her vie intime, if, indeed, life be possible in such a place.  The Sperrit man told me that if I had means of my own I might come and live on Ther Land.  I didn’t tell him how much I would pay not to!  I cannot think it right that any human being should exercise mastery over others in the merciless fashion our tom-fool social system permits; so, as it is all mine, I intend to sell it whenever the unholy Sperrit can find a purchaser.’

And he went to Mr. Sperrit with the idea next day, just before returning to town.

‘Quite so,’ said the lawyer.  ’I see your point, of course.  But the house itself is rather old-fashioned—­hardly the type purchasers demand nowadays.  There’s no park, of course, and the bulk of the land is let to a life-tenant, a Mr. Sidney.  As long as he pays his rent, he can’t be turned out, and even if he didn’t’—­Mr. Sperrit’s face relaxed a shade—­’you might have a difficulty.’

‘The property brings four hundred a year, I understand,’ said Midmore.

’Well, hardly—­ha-ardly.  Deducting land and income tax, tithes, fire insurance, cost of collection and repairs of course, it returned two hundred and eighty-four pounds last year.  The repairs are rather a large item—­owing to the brook.  I call it Liris—­out of Horace, you know.’