mentally noted their gifts from of lands purchases and buildings more particularly their political and military achievements which had been great and their performances in arts and letters which had been by no means contemptible he studied prints of the portrait of that family and then like a watching a began to examine young s face for the of those historic curves and shades that the painters and had on canvas when the boy reached the most fascinating age of childhood and his shouts of laughter ran through house from end to end the remorse that oppressed knew no bounds of all people in the world this was the one on whom he could have wished the estates to yet by s own desperate at the time of his birth had been from all inheritance of them and since he did not mean to the s lady would pass to his brother and his brother s children who would be nothing to him whose boasted on one side would be nothing to his s had he only left the first will of his grandfather alone his mind ran on the wills continually both of which were in existence and the first the one in his own possession night after night when the servants were all and the click of safety locks sounded as loud as a crash he looked at that first will and wished it had been the second and not the first the crisis came at last one night after having enjoyed the boy s company for hours he could no longer bear that his beloved should be and he committed the deed of the date of the earlier will to a fortnight later which made its execution appear subsequent to the date of the second will already proved he then boldly the first will as the second his brother edward submitted to what appeared to be not only fact but a far more likely disposition of old s property for like many others he had been much surprised at the defined in the other will having no to their cause he joined his brother in setting aside the hitherto accepted document and matters went on in their usual course there being no dispositions in the a group of noble will from those in the other except such as related to a future which had not yet arrived the years moved on had not yet revealed the anxiously expected historic which should the political abilities of the family when it happened on a certain day that made the acquaintance of a well known physician of who had been the medical adviser and friend of the late mrs s family for many years though after s marriage and consequent removal to he had seen no more of her the neighboring who attended the having then become her doctor as a matter of course was impressed by the insight and knowledge disclosed in the conversation of the physician and the acquaintance to intimacy the physician alluded to a form of to which s mother and grandmother had been subject � that of believing in certain dreams as realities he delicately inquired if had ever noticed anything of the sort in his wife during her lifetime he the physician had fancied that he discerned of the same peculiarity in when he attended her in her one explanation another till the was persuaded in his own mind that s confession to him had been based on a delusion squire s lady you look down in the mouth said the doctor pausing a bit tis unexpected like sighed but he could hardly believe it possible and thinking it best to be frank with the doctor told him the whole story which till now he had never related to living man save his dying grandfather to his surprise the physician informed him that such a form of delusion was precisely what he would have expected from s at such a physical crisis in her life his inquiries elsewhere and the of his labors was briefly that a comparison of dates and places showed that his poor wife s assertion could not possibly have foundation in fact the young of her tender passion � a highly moral and nobleman � had gone abroad the year before s marriage and had not returned until after her death the young girl s love for him had been a delicate ideal dream � no more went home and the boy ran out to meet him whereupon a strangely dismal feeling of discontent took possession of his soul after all then there was nothing but blood in the veins of the heir to his name and estates ho was not to be succeeded by a noble natured line to be sure was his son but that glory and he believed him to have inherited from the ages that of his brother s children a group of noble had departed from s brow forever he could no longer read history in the boy s face and centuries of in his eyes his manner towards his son grew colder and colder from that day forward and it was with bitterness of heart that he discerned the characteristic features of the themselves by degrees instead of the elegant nose so typical of the of there began to appear on his face the broad and hollow bridge of his grandfather no illustrious line of was promised a in that blue eye for it was acquiring the expression of the of a particularly objectionable cousin of his own and instead of the mouth curves which had thrilled in speeches now bound in calf in every well ordered library there was the bull lip of that very uncle of his who had had the misfortune with the signature of a gentleman s will and had been transported for life in consequence to think how he himself too had in this same matter of a will 