Your father raised his mortgages from time to time, as he wanted money, and often at interest above the average market interest.

You may add considerably to your income by consolidating all these mortgages into one at a lower percentage, and in so doing pay off this formidable mortgagee, M.Louvier, who, I shrewdly suspect, is bent upon becoming the proprietor of Rochebriant.

Unfortunately those few portions of your land which were but lightly charged, and, lying contiguous to small proprietors, were coveted by them, and could be advantageously sold, are already gone to pay the debts of Monsieur the late Marquis.

There are, however, two small farms which, bordering close on the town of S______, I think I could dispose of for building purposes at high rates; but these lands are covered by M.Louvier's general mortgage, and he has refused to release them, unless the whole debt be paid.

Were that debt therefore transferred to another mortgagee, we might stipulate for their exception, and in so doing secure a sum of more than 100,000 francs, which you could keep in reserve for a pressing or unforeseen occasion, and make the nucleus of a capital devoted to the gradual liquidation of the charges on the estate.