CHAPTER XIII.
"THE fortune which Mr.Vanstone possessed when you knew him" (the lawyer began) "was part, and part only, of the inheritance which fell to him on his father's death.

Mr.Vanstone the elder was a manufacturer in the North of England.

He married early in life; and the children of the marriage were either six or seven in number--I am not certain which.
First, Michael, the eldest son, still living, and now an old man turned seventy.

Secondly, Selina, the eldest daughter, who married in after-life, and who died ten or eleven years ago.

After those two came other sons and daughters, whose early deaths make it unnecessary to mention them particularly.