Uncle Roger made no comment to my father, who, as Head of our House,
should, of course, have been informed, he was not pleased. My
mother, who has a good fortune in her own right, and has had the
sense to keep it in her own control--as I am to inherit it, and it is
not in the entail, I am therefore quite impartial--I can approve of
her spirited conduct in the matter. We never did think much of
Rupert, anyhow; but now, since he is in the way to be a pauper, and
therefore a dangerous nuisance, we look on him as quite an outsider.
We know what he really is. For my own part, I loathe and despise
him. Just now we are irritated with him, for we are all kept on
tenterhooks regarding my dear Uncle Roger's Will. For Mr. Trent, the
attorney who regulated my dear uncle's affairs and has possession of
the Will, says it is necessary to know where every possible
beneficiary is to be found before making the Will public, so we all
have to wait. It is especially hard on me, who am the natural heir.
It is very thoughtless indeed of Rupert to keep away like that. I
wrote to old MacSkelpie about it, but he didn't seem to understand or
to be at all anxious--he is not the heir! He said that probably
Rupert Sent Leger--he, too, keeps to the old spelling--did not know
of his uncle's death, or he would have taken steps to relieve our
anxiety. Our anxiety, forsooth! We are not anxious; we only wish to
KNOW. And if we--and especially me--who have all the annoyance of
thinking of the detestable and unfair death-duties, are anxious, we
should be so. Well, anyhow, he'll get a properly bitter
disappointment and set down when he does turn up and discovers that
he is a pauper without hope!


To-day we (father and I) had letters from Mr. Trent, telling us that
the whereabouts of "Mr. Rupert Sent Leger" had been discovered, and