Pagina 381 di 657

"The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the

estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north,

and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four

successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition,

and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the

days of the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground,

and the two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under

a heavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence

there, living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but

his only son, my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to

the new conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which

enabled him to take a medical degree and went out to Calcutta,

where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he

established a large practice.