“To join Garibaldi!” exclaimed the other. “A man with a landed estate and thirty-six thousand in the Three per Cents gone off to Garibaldi!”
“It is clear we are not talking of the same person. My poor friend had none olthat wealth you speak of.”
“Probably not, sir, when last you saw him; but his uncle, Sir Omerod Butler, has died, leaving him all he had in the world.”
“I never knew he had an uncle. I never heard him speak of a rich relation.”
“There was some family quarrel,—some estrangement, I don't know what; but when Sir Omerod sent for me to add a codicil to his will, he expressed a great wish to see his nephew before he died, and sent me off to Ireland to fetch him to him; but a relapse of his malady occurred the day after I left him, and he died within a week.”
The man of law entered into a minute description of the property to which Tony was to succeed. There was a small family estate in Ireland, and a large one in England; there was a considerable funded fortune, and some scattered moneys in foreign securities; the whole only charged with eight hundred a-year on the life of a lady no longer young, whom scandal called not the widow of Sir Omerod Butler. M'Grader paid little attention to these details; his whole thought was how to apprise Tony of his good-luck,—how call him back to a world where he had what would make life most enjoyable. “I take it, sir,” asked he, at last, “that you don't fancy a tour in Sicily?”
“Nothing is less in my thoughts, sir. We shall be most proud to act as Mr. Butler's agents, but I 'm not prepared to expose my life for the agency.”
“Then, I think I must go myself. It's clear the poor fellow ought to know of his good fortune.”
“I suspect that the Countess Brancaleone, the annuitant I mentioned, will not send to tell him,” said the lawyer, smiling; “for if Mr. Butler should get knocked over in this ugly business, she inherits everything, even to the family plate with the Butler arms.”
“She sha'n't, if I can help it,” said M'Gruder, firmly. “I'll set out to-night.”