Some towns are said to have required the life of a child ere their foundations could be laid.  Many a speculation has swallowed a life and fortune before its time for thriving has come.  Mr. Frost Dynevor and Lord Ormersfield were the foremost victims to the Cheveleigh iron foundries and the Northwold baths.  The close of the war brought a commercial crisis that their companies could not stand; and Mr. Dynevor’s death spared him from the sight of the crash, which his talent and sagacity might possibly have averted.  He had shown no misgivings, but, no sooner was he removed from the helm, than the vessel was found on the brink of destruction.  Enormous sums had been sunk without tangible return, and the liabilities of the companies far surpassed anything that they had realized.

Lord Ormersfield was stunned and helpless.  Mrs. Dynevor had but one idea—­namely, to sacrifice everything to clear her husband’s name.  Her sons were mere boys, and the only person who proved himself able to act or judge was the heir of Ormersfield, then about four-and-twenty, who came forward with sound judgment and upright dispassionate sense of justice to cope with the difficulties and clear away the involvements.

He joined his father in mortgaging land, sacrificing timber, and reducing the establishment, so as to set the estate in the way of finally becoming free, though at the expense of rigid economy and self-denial.

Cheveleigh could not have been saved, even had the heiress not been willing to yield everything to satisfy the just claims of the creditors.  She was happy when she heard that it would suffice, and that no one would be able to accuse her husband of having wronged him.  But for this, she would hardly have submitted to retain what her nephew succeeded in securing for her—­namely, an income of about 150 pounds per annum, and the row of houses called Dynevor Terrace, one of the building ventures at Northwold.  This was the sole dependence with which she and her sons quitted the home of their forefathers.  ‘Never mind, mother,’ said Henry, kissing her, to prevent the tears from springing, ‘home is wherever we are together!’ ‘Never fear, mother,’ echoed Oliver, with knitted brow and clenched hands, ‘I will win it back.’

Oliver was a quiet lad, of diligent, methodical habits, and willingly accepted a clerkship in a mercantile house, which owed some obligations to his father.  At the end of a couple of years he was sent to reside in South America; and his parting words to his mother were—­’When you see me again, Cheveleigh shall be yours.’

’Oh, my boy, take care.  Remember, ’They that haste to be rich shall not be innocent.’’

That was the last time she had seen Oliver.