"
They had just finished breakfast on the day before Christmas, when
one of the apprentices came up from the shop and said that one Master
Goldsworthy, a lawyer in the Temple, desired to speak to Sir Cyril
Shenstone. Cyril was about to go down when Captain Dave said,--
"Show the gentleman up, Susan. We will leave you here to him, Cyril."
"By no means," Cyril said. "I do not know him, and he can assuredly
have no private business with me that you may not hear."
Mrs. Dowsett and her daughter, however, left the room. The lawyer, a
grave-looking gentleman of some fifty years of age, glanced at Cyril
and the Captain as he entered the room, and then advanced towards the
former.
"My name is unknown to you, Sir Cyril," he said, "but it has been
said that a bearer of good news needs no introduction, and I come in
that capacity. I bring you, sir, a Christmas-box," and he took from a
bag he carried a bundle of some size, and a letter. "Before you open
it, sir, I will explain the character of its contents, which would
take you some time to decipher and understand, while I can explain
them in a very few words. I may tell you that I am the legal adviser
of Mr. Ebenezer Harvey, of Upmead Court, Norfolk. You are, I presume,
familiar with the name?"
Cyril started. Upmead Court was the name of his father's place, but
with the name of its present owner he was not familiar. Doubtless, he
might sometimes have heard it from his father, but the latter, when
he spoke of the present possessor of the Court, generally did so as
"that Roundhead dog," or "that canting Puritan.
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