It would have been Owen Fitzgerald's desire to disclaim¹ the inheritance which chance had put in his way in absolute silence, had such a course been possible to him. And, indeed, not being very well conversant² with matters of business, he had thought for a while that this might be done—or at any rate something not far different from this. To those who had hitherto spoken to him upon the subject, to Mr. Prendergast, Mr. Somers, and his cousin, he had disclaimed⁴ the inheritance, and that he had thought would have sufficed. That Sir Thomas should die so quickly after the discovery had not of course been expected by anybody; and much, therefore, had not been thought at the moment of these disclaimers;—neither at the moment, nor indeed afterwards, when Sir Thomas did die.

Even Mr. Somers was prepared to admit that as the game had been given up,—as his branch of the Fitzgeralds, acting⁵ under the advice of their friend and lawyer, admitted that the property must go from them—even he, much as he contested within his own breast the propriety⁶ of Mr. Prendergast's decisions, was fain to admit now that it was Owen's business to walk in upon the property. Any words which he may have spoken on the impulse of the moment were empty words. When a man becomes heir to twelve thousand a year, he does not give it up in a freak of benevolence⁷. And, therefore, when Sir Thomas had been dead some four or five weeks, and when Herbert had gone away from the scene which was no longer one of interest to him, it was necessary that something should be done.

During the last two or three days of his life Sir Thomas had executed a new will, in which he admitted that his son was not the heir to his estates, and so disposed of such moneys as it was in his power to leave as he would have done had Herbert been a younger son. Early in his life he himself had added something to the property, some two or three hundred a year, and this, also, he left of course to his own family. Such having been done, there would have been no

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