“Heard what?” I cried, nearly hoarse from agitation.  “Our poor old friend, Sir Guy, didn’t you know, is dead.”  Only those who have felt how strong the ties of kindred are, as they decrease in number, can tell how this news fell upon my heart.  All my poor uncle’s kindnesses came one by one full upon my memory; his affectionate letters of advice; his well-meant chidings, too, even dearer to me than his praise and approval, completely unmanned me; and I stood speechless and powerless before my cousin as he continued to detail to me the rapid progress of Sir Guy’s malady, and attack of gout in the head, which carried him off in three days.  Letters had been sent to me in different places, but none reached; and at the very moment the clerk of my uncle’s lawyer was in pursuit of me through the highlands, where some mistaken information had induced him to follow me.

“You are, therefore,” continued Guy, “unaware that our uncle has dealt so fairly by you, and indeed by both of us; I have got the Somersetshire estates, which go with the baronetcy; but the Cumberland property is all yours; and I heartily wish you joy of having nearly eight thousand per annum, and one of the sweetest villas that ever man fancied on Derwentwater.  But come along here,” continued he, and he led me through the crowded corridor and up the wide stair.  “I have much to tell you, and we can be perfectly alone here; no one will trouble themselves with us.”  Unconscious of all around me, I followed Guy along the gilded and glittering lobby, which led to the Salon, and it was only as the servant in rich livery came forward to take my hat and cane that I remembered where I was.  Then the full sense of all I had been listening to rushed upon me, and the unfitness, and indeed the indecency of the place for such communications as we were engaged in, came most forcibly before me.  Sir Guy, it is true, had always preferred my cousin to me; he it was who was always destined to succeed both to his title and his estates, and his wildness and extravagance had ever met with a milder rebuke and weaker chastisement than my follies and my misfortunes.  Yet still he was my last remaining relative; the only one I possessed in all the world to whom in any difficulty or trial I had to look up; and I felt, in the very midst of my newly acquired wealth and riches, poorer and more alone than ever I had done in my lifetime.  I followed Guy to a small and dimly lighted cabinet off the great salon, where, having seated ourselves, he proceeded to detail to me the various events which a few short weeks had accomplished.  Of himself he spoke but little, and never once alluded to the Callonbys at all; indeed all I could learn was that he had left the army, and purposed remaining for the winter at Paris, where he appeared to have entered into all its gaiety and dissipation at once.

“Of course,” said he, “you will give up ‘sodgering’ now; at the best it is but poor sport after five and twenty, and is perfectly unendurable when a man has the means of pushing himself in the gay world; and now, Harry, let us mix a little among the mob here; for Messieurs les Banquiers don’t hold people in estimation who come here only for the ‘chapons au riz.’ and the champagne glacee, as we should seem to do were we to stay here much longer.”