completed, he called it after the name of the place in Staffordshire where he had made his money, and where he had lived during the happiest period of his life.  His relatives, failing to understand that a question of sentiment was involved in this proceeding, appealed to hard facts, and reminded him that there were no salt mines in the neighborhood.  Reuben Limbrick answered, “So much the worse for the neighborhood”—­and persisted in calling his property, “Salt Patch.”

The cottage was so small that it looked quite lost in the large garden all round it.  There was a ground-floor and a floor above it—­and that was all.

On either side of the passage, on the lower floor, were two rooms.  At the right-hand side, on entering by the front-door, there was a kitchen, with its outhouses attached.  The room next to the kitchen looked into the garden.  In Reuben Limbrick’s time it was called the study and contained a small collection of books and a large store of fishing-tackle.  On the left-hand side of the passage there was a drawing-room situated at the back of the house, and communicating with a dining-room in the front.  On the upper floor there were five bedrooms—­two on one side of the passage, corresponding in size with the dining-room and the drawing-room below, but not opening into each other; three on the other side of the passage, consisting of one larger room in front, and of two small rooms at the back.  All these were solidly and completely furnished.  Money had not been spared, and workmanship had not been stinted.  It was all substantial—­and, up stairs and down stairs, it was all ugly.

The situation of Salt Patch was lonely.  The lands of the market-gardeners separated it from other houses.  Jealously surrounded by its own high walls, the cottage suggested, even to the most unimaginative persons, the idea of an asylum or a prison.  Reuben Limbrick’s relatives, occasionally coming to stay with him, found the place prey on their spirits, and rejoiced when the time came for going home again.  They were never pressed to stay against their will.  Reuben Limbrick was not a hospitable or a sociable man.  He set very little value on human sympathy, in his attacks of illness; and he bore congratulations impatiently, in his intervals of health.  “I care about nothing but fishing,” he used to say.  “I find my dog very good company.  And I am quite happy as long as I am free from pain.”

On his death-bed, he divided his money justly enough among his relations.  The only part of his Will which exposed itself to unfavorable criticism, was a clause conferring a legacy on one of his sisters (then a widow) who had estranged herself from her family by marrying beneath her.  The family agreed in considering this unhappy person as undeserving of notice or benefit.  Her name was Hester Dethridge.  It proved to be a great aggravation of Hester’s offenses, in the eyes of Hester’s relatives, when it was discovered that she possessed a life-interest in Salt Patch, and an income of two hundred a year.