Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/316

306 with his umbrella to the wide fields on the right, conspicuous for their compact hedgerows, deep, well-cut ditches, and fine timber-trees, growing sometimes on the borders, sometimes in the midst of the enclosure;—"very fine land, if you saw it in the summer or spring."

"Ay," responded the other—a gruff elderly man, with a drab great coat buttoned up to the chin and a cotton umbrella between his knees. "It's old Maxwell's I suppose."

"It was his, sir, but he's dead now, you're aware, and has left it all to his niece."

"All!"

"Every rood of it,—and the mansion-house and all,—every hatom of his worldly goods!—except just a trifle, by way of remembrance to his nephew down in ——shire and an annuity to his wife."

"It's strange, sir!"

"It is sir. And she wasn't his own niece neither; but he had no near relations of his