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Updated: June 20, 2025
As the assembly gathered round the family tomb of the Castletons, Mr Groocock, happening to look up, observed among the crowd, standing directly opposite where the chief mourners were collected, a dark bearded man, whose eye was fixed on Sir Ralph, his countenance exhibiting a peculiarly evil expression. "That man comes here for no good," thought the steward.
In one of these rambles they all called at the Tower, Lord and Lady Ulverstone, the Castletons, and their children. I escaped the visit; and on my return home there was a certain delicacy respecting old associations that restrained much talk, before me, on so momentous an event. Roland, like me, had kept out of the way. Blanche, poor child, ignorant of the antecedents, was the most communicative.
"You speak of my uncle Ronald," exclaimed Harry, "who married, I am told, a very lovely girl, and simply because she could not trace her pedigree to the same stock as the Castletons, my grandfather refused to receive her as his daughter-in-law, and my uncle, rather than subject her to the annoyance to which she might have been exposed at home, took her abroad.
The little Castletons had natural dramatic instincts and were adepts at posing, so their play was really very pretty. Madox, in especial, absolutely excelled himself as a robber and came out tremendously. He bowed gallantly in response to the storm of applause, and blew an airy kiss to Merle, who nearly collapsed with mirth.
He was important, not only from his rank and his vast fortune, but from an immense circle of powerful connections; from the ability of his two predecessors, who had been keen politicians and cabinet ministers; from the prestige they had bequeathed to his name; from the peculiar nature of his property, which gave him the returning interest in no less than six parliamentary seats in Great Britain and Ireland; besides the indirect ascendency which the head of the Castletons had always exercised over many powerful and noble allies of that princely house.
The Beaudeserts are a good old family ono, as old, for what I know, as the Castletons; but the British empire would suffer no loss if they sank into the tomb of the Capulets. But that the Castleton peerage should expire is a thought of crime and woe at which all the mothers of England rise in a phalanx!
The Haven, as the house occupied by the Castletons was called, had been changed into its present form by an old retired sea-captain, and there was much about it that suggested a nautical atmosphere.
"If you will go to her grave and kneel there and ask her pardon, I may think differently of you because, after all, I am your daughter. You will not find her buried among the stately Castletons, but in a poor little spot far, far away from them. I can tell you how to find it. You have never inquired, I suppose?" His eyes narrowed. "By Jove, you are a mean little beggar!"
"Indeed I do," said she with conviction. He laughed without restraint. "Mother can rattle off the best families in the Bible without missing a name, beginning with the Honourable Adam. Of course, she knows the Glynns and the Castletons and the Murgatroyds, although I dare say they haven't had much to do with the Bible.
Besides the bread and the spectacles, just look out and bring me the old black-letter copy of Saint Anthony's 'Sermon to Fishes." Some weeks now have passed since my return to the Tower; the Castletons are gone, and all Trevanion's gay guests. And since these departures, visits between the two houses have been interchanged often, and the bonds of intimacy are growing close.
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