VERNER’S PRIDE.
BY THE AUTHORESS OF “EAST LYNNE.”
CHAPTER XXI. NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA.
Lionel Verner could scarcely believe in his own identity. The train, which was to have contained him, was whirling towards London, he, a poor aspirant for future fortune, ought to have been in it; he had counted most certainly to be in it; but here was he, while the steam of that train yet snorted in his ears, walking out of the station a wealthy man, come into a proud inheritance, the inheritance of his fathers. In the first moment of tumultuous thought, Lionel almost felt as if some fairy must have been at work with a magic wand.
It was all true. He linked his arm within Jan’s, and listened to the recital in detail. Jan had found Mrs. Verner, on his arrival at Verner’s Pride, weeping over letters from Australia: one from a Captain Cannonby, one from Sibylla. They contained the tidings that Frederick Massingbird had died of fever, and that Sibylla was anxious to come home again.
“Who is Captain Cannonby?” asked Lionel of Jan.
“Have you forgotten the name?” returned Jan. “That friend of Fred Massingbird’s, who sold out, and was knocking about London: Fred went up once or twice to see him. He went out to the diggings last autumn, and it seems Fred and Sibylla lighted on him at Melbourne. He had laid poor Fred in the grave the day before he wrote, he says.”
“I can scarcely believe it all now, Jan,” said Lionel. “What a change!”
“Ay. You won’t believe it for a day or two.
