As the various items of news were now detailed to him--the wasteful expenditure, the disastrous ruin, the total absence of provision for Isabel--he stood petrified and aghast.
He was a tall stout man, of three-and-forty years, his nature honorable, his manner cold, and his countenance severe.
"It is the most iniquitous piece of business I ever heard of!" he exclaimed to the two lawyers.

"Of all the reckless fools, Mount Severn must have been the worst!" "Unpardonably improvident as regards his daughter," was the assenting remark.
"Improvident! It must have been rank madness!" retorted the earl.

"No man in his senses could leave a child to the mercy of the world, as he has left her.

She has not a shilling--literally, not a shilling in her possession.

I put the question to her, what money there was in the house when the earl died.