Description

For besides his own large property, he had in his youth married for his first wife the daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Devon, whose estates marched with his own. At her death this lady had left everything she possessed to her husband, and thus Mr. Temple was one of the largest land-owners in the country. The old man sighed when he thought of all this, and covered his face with his hands. He was thinking who would now come after him; thinking of his heir. He knew who it must be. The Woodlea estates had been entailed by his father in the event of his having no children, beyond him. The late Mr. Temple had left two sons, Phillip, the heir, and John, who had gone into the army and died young. But he had married, and left a son, also named John. This John Temple the squire knew was now the heir to Woodlea. He was a man of some thirty years old, and occasionally had visited his uncle, but no great intimacy had existed between them.