own. We abolished slavery in our colonies. We
established the liberty of the press. We lit our
great city from end to end with a light only second
to that of day. We originated a system of
coaching at twelve miles the hour, which was
unrivalled in Europe; and we superseded it by
casting a network of iron roads all over the face
of the country, along which the traveller has
been known to fly at the rate of a mile a
minute. Truly a marvellous century! perhaps
the most marvellous which the world has ever
known, since that from which all our years are
dated!

And during the whole of this time, the Trefalden
legacy was fattening at interest, assuming
overgrown proportions, doubling, trebling,
quadrupling itself over and over and over
again.

Not so the Trefalden family. They had increased
and multiplied but scantily, according to
the average of human kind; and had had but
little opportunity of fattening, in so far as that
term may be applied to the riches of the earth.
One branch of it had become extinct. Of the
other two branches only three representatives
remained. We must pause to consider how these
things came to pass, but only for a few moments;
for of all the trees that have ever been cultivated
by man, the genealogical tree is the driest. It
is one, we may be sure, that had no place in the
garden of Eden. Its root is in the grave; its
produce mere Dead Sea fruit—apples of dust and
ashes.

The extinct branch of the Trefaldens was that
which began and ended in Mr. Fred. That
ornament to society met his death in a tavern row
about eighteen months after the reading of the
will. He had in the mean while spent the whole
of his five thousand pounds, ruined his tailor, and
brought an honest eating-house keeper to the
verge of bankruptcy. He also died in debt to the
amount of seven thousand pounds; so that, as
Mr. Horace Walpole was heard to say, he went
out of the world with credit.

William, the youngest of the brothers, after a
cautious examination of his prospects from every
point of view, decided to carry on, at least, a part
of the business. To this end, he entered into
partnership with his late father's managing clerk, an
invaluable person, who had been in old Jacob's
confidence for more than thirty years, and, now
that his employer was dead, was thought to know
more about indigo than any other man in London.
He had also a snug sum in the Funds, and an only
daughter, who kept house for him at Islington.
When Mr. Will had ascertained the precise
value of this young lady's attractions, he proposed
a second partnership, was accepted, and married
her. The fruit of this marriage was a son named
Charles, born in 1770, who became in time his
father's partner and successor, and in whose
hands the old Trefalden house flourished bravely.
This Charles, marrying late in life, took to wife
the second daughter of a rich East India Director,
with twelve thousand pounds for her fortune.
She brought him four sons, the eldest of whom,
Edward, born in 1815, was destined to indigo
from his cradle. The second and third died in
childhood, and the youngest, named William,
after his grandfather, was born in 1822, and
educated for the law.

The father of these young men died suddenly
in 1844, just as old Jacob Trefalden had died more
than eighty years before. He was succeeded in
Basinghall-street by his eldest son. The new
principal was, however, a stout, apathetic
bachelor of self-indulgent habits, languid
circulation, and indolent physique—a mere Roi
Fainéant, without a Martel to guide him. He
reigned only six years, and died of a flow of
turtle soup to the head, in 1850, leaving his
affairs hopelessly involved, and his books a mere
collection of Sybilline leaves which no accountant
in London was Augur enough to decipher. With
him expired the mercantile house of Trefalden;
and his brother, the lawyer, now became the only
remaining representative of the youngest branch
of the family.

For the elder branch we must go back again
to 1760.

Honest Captain Jacob, upon whom had now
devolved the responsibility of perpetuating the
Trefalden name, took his five thousand pounds
with a sigh; wisely relinquished all thought of
disputing the will; sold his commission;
emigrated to a remote corner of Switzerland;
bought land, and herds, and a quaint little
mediæval château surmounted by a whole forest
of turrets, gable-ends, and fantastic weathercocks;
and embraced the patriarchal life of his
adopted country. Switzerland was at that time
the most peaceful, the best governed, and the
least expensive spot in Europe. Captain Jacob,
with his five thousand pounds, was a millionnaire
in the Canton Grisons. He was entitled to a
seat in the Diet, if he chose to take it; and a
vote, if he chose to utter it; and he interchanged
solemn half-yearly civilities with the stiffest old
republican aristocrats in Chur and Thusis. But
it was not for these advantages that he valued
his position in that primitive place. He loved
ease, and liberty, and the open air. He loved
the simple, pastoral, homely life of the people.
He loved to be rich enough to help his poorer
neighbours—to be able to give the pastor a new
cassock, or the church a new font, or the young
riflemen of the district a silver watch to shoot
for, when the annual Schützen Fest came round.
He could not have done all this in England,
heavily taxed and burthened as England then
was, upon two hundred and fifty pounds a year.
So the good soldier framed his commission, hung
up his sword to rust over the dining-room
chimney-piece, and planted and drained, sowed
and reaped, shot an occasional chamois, and
settled down for life as a Swiss country gentleman.
Living thus, with the wife of his choice,
and enjoying the society of a few kindly neighbours,
he became the happy father of a son and
two daughters, between whom, at his death, he