But the claims of the pipe prevented the good Doctor from too quickly satisfying her natural curiosity. Another puff or two, and he then continued.
'Yes,' said he, 'the old abbey has at last found a tenant.'
'A tenant, Doctor?'
'Ay! the best tenant in the world: its proprietor.'
'You quite surprise me. When did this occur?'
'They have been there these three days; I have paid them a visit. Mrs.
Cadurcis has come to live at the abbey with the little lord.'
'This is indeed news to us,' said Lady Annabel; 'and what kind of people are they?'
'You know, my dear madam,' said the Doctor, just touching the ash of his pipe with his tobacco-stopper of chased silver, 'that the present lord is a very distant relative of the late one?'
Lady Annabel bowed assent.
'The late lord,' continued the Doctor, 'who was as strange and wrong-headed a man as ever breathed, though I trust he is in the kingdom of heaven for all that, left all his property to his unlawful children, with the exception of this estate entailed on the title, as all estates should be, 'Tis a fine place, but no great rental. I doubt whether 'tis more than a clear twelve hundred a-year.'