CHAPTER I.
OLD Lady Lydiard sat meditating by the fireside, with three letters lying open on her lap.
Time had discolored the paper, and had turned the ink to a brownish hue.
The letters were all addressed to the same person--"THE RT.HON.

LORD LYDIARD"-- and were all signed in the same way--"Your affectionate cousin, James Tollmidge." Judged by these specimens of his correspondence, Mr.Tollmidge must have possessed one great merit as a letter-writer--the merit of brevity.

He will weary nobody's patience, if he is allowed to have a hearing.

Let him, therefore, be permitted, in his own high-flown way, to speak for himself.
_First Letter._--"My statement, as your Lordship requests, shall be short and to the point.

I was doing very well as a portrait-painter in the country; and I had a wife and children to consider.