The mines brought him in gold, and in his later years he purchased this estate, pulled down the house that was upon it--a high, narrow, old thing, looking like a crazy tower or a capacious belfry--and had erected this one, calling it "Verner's Pride." An appropriate name.

For if ever poor human man was proud of a house he has built, old Mr.Verner was proud of that--proud to folly.

He laid out money on it in plenty; he made the grounds belonging to it beautiful and seductive as a fabled scene from fairyland; and he wound up by leaving it to the younger of his two sons.
These two sons constituted all his family.

The elder of them had gone into the army early, and left for India; the younger had remained always with his father, the helper of his money-making, the sharer of the planning out and building of Verner's Pride, the joint resident there after it was built.

The elder son--Captain Verner then--paid one visit only to England, during which visit he married, and took his wife out with him when he went back.