The old man made tens of thousands
by the sale of the timber, and other thousands by disposing of the
pictures. The house is denuded of its fine old furniture, which was
immensely valuable, and then the books, as I have said, must have
brought in the revenue of a prince, if he got anything like their
value, and you may be sure he was shrewd enough to know their worth.
Since the last refusal of the courts to allow him further relief, as
he termed it, which was some seven years ago, he had quite evidently
been disposing of books and furniture by a private sale, in defiance
of the law. At that time I was under age, but my guardians opposed his
application to the courts, and demanded an account of the moneys
already in his hands. The judges upheld the opposition of my
guardians, and refused to allow a further spoliation of the estate,
but they did not grant the accounting my guardians asked, because the
proceeds of the former sales were entirely at the disposal of my
uncle, and were sanctioned by the law to permit him to live as
befitted his station. If he lived meagrely instead of lavishly, as my
guardians contended, that, the judges said, was his affair, and there
the matter ended.
'My uncle took a violent dislike to me on account of this opposition
to his last application, although, of course, I had nothing whatever
to do with the matter.
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