being even after a life of long and eminently successful toil. And somehow, he scarcely dared to realise it. Half a million of money! And his sister—just as rich as himself. What would she say?
"It will be some time before I can really realise it," he said, when Mr. Pepperall had forced a glass of champagne into his hand and had made him drink it off. "It seems—unbelievable."
"Solid, unmistakable, tangible fact, my dear sir," said the man of law. "As much a fact, sir, as the Bank of England."
"There is something I wish you would tell me, then," said Goulburn, "and that is—when did my Uncle Nathaniel die and where? and how long had he been in England? and how was it that he did not communicate with his relatives?—though, to be sure, Maisie and I are all he had left, and I dare say no one knew where we had got to."
"My dear sir," replied Mr. Conybeare, "I will give you the information in brief. Your Uncle Nathaniel, who, from what I saw of him, was an eccentric man, returned to this country in the autumn of last year; and because he desired to be near a certain eminent physician, Sir Adolphus Yorstoun, who, as you know, is the man of the day for gout, he bought himself a house in Harley Street, and there he lived, in the strictest seclusion, until his death, which occurred about six weeks since. Now, some weeks before his death he sent for me,—for the pure and simple reason that I had once met him in crossing the Atlantic, and that he
