whether the beneficiaries were dead or not, none knew, but now and then letters came pleading for a continuance of former favors, and recalling obligations.
Mr. Stretton had been ill for a week, and now that the records were found, David must go, and go at once. The lawyer had many subjects for investigation to deliver to David. There was the death-bed request of an old nurse of his aunt, who had an annuity, that it be extended to her crippled granddaughter. She lived among the Cornish hills. Would he hunt the family up and learn if they were worthy or impostors? His uncle had been endlessly plagued with such importunities—and so on—and so on.
Yes, certainly David would go. He made a mental reservation that he would sail, without returning to London, and then make a clean breast of his affairs by letter to his mother. She had improved in health during the winter, and he thought his information would be received by her with more equanimity than it would have been earlier. Moreover, she had broached the subject of marriage to him more than once, but always in one of her most worldly moods, when he shrank from hearing Cassandra spoken of as he knew she would be—when he could not hear her discussed, nor reply with calmness to such questions as he knew must ensue.
David had little time to brood over his peculiar difficulty, as his short journey was full of business interest and new experiences. Yet the Cornish hills awoke in him a still greater eagerness for the mountains of his dreams, and, after securing