He was, out of all sight (as I remember him), the nicest boy that ever spun a top or broke a window.

Miss Rachel, who was present, and to whom I made that remark, observed, in return, that SHE remembered him as the most atrocious tyrant that ever tortured a doll, and the hardest driver of an exhausted little girl in string harness that England could produce.

"I burn with indignation, and I ache with fatigue," was the way Miss Rachel summed it up, "when I think of Franklin Blake." Hearing what I now tell you, you will naturally ask how it was that Mr.
Franklin should have passed all the years, from the time when he was a boy to the time when he was a man, out of his own country.

I answer, because his father had the misfortune to be next heir to a Dukedom, and not to be able to prove it.
In two words, this was how the thing happened: My lady's eldest sister married the celebrated Mr.Blake--equally famous for his great riches, and his great suit at law.

How many years he went on worrying the tribunals of his country to turn out the Duke in possession, and to put himself in the Duke's place--how many lawyer's purses he filled to bursting, and how many otherwise harmless people he set by the ears together disputing whether he was right or wrong--is more by a great deal than I can reckon up.