1.                  2.             3.           4.        5.
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James Roland      Frances      Catharine   Oliver      Clara            Louis Fitzjocelyn                                Mary Ponsonby
Frost Dynevor     b. 1826       b. 1827    b. 1829     b. 1831         Viscount Fitzjocelyn                                 b. 1826
b. 1824          d. 1832       d. 1832    d. 1832                            b. 1826. 
Fellow of St.
F. College,
Oxford.

‘Since 1816,’ muttered James, as he finished.  ’Thirty years of drudgery!  When shall I be able to relieve her?  Ha!  O. J. F. Dynevor, Esquire, if it were you who were coming from Peru, you would find a score to settle!’

He ran down stairs to assist his grandmother in the Latin lessons of her little school, the usual employment of his vacations.

Catharine Dynevor had begun life with little prospect of spending nearly half of it as mistress of a school.

Her father was the last male of the Dynevors of Cheveleigh—­a family mounting up to the days of the Pendragons—­and she had been made to take the place of an eldest son, inheriting the extensive landed property on condition that her name and arms should be assumed in case of her marriage.  Her choice was one of the instances in which her affections had the mastery over her next strongest characteristic, family pride.  She married a highly-educated and wealthy gentleman, of good family, but of mercantile connexions, such as her father, if living, would have disdained.  Her married life was, however, perfectly unclouded, her ample means gave her the power of dispensing joy, and her temperament was so blithe and unselfish that no pleasure ever palled upon her.  Cheveleigh was a proverb for hospitality, affording unfailing fetes for all ages, full of a graceful ease and freedom that inspired enjoyment.

Mr. Frost Dynevor was a man of refined taste, open-handed even to extravagance, liberal in all his appointments, and gratifying to the utmost his love of art and decoration, while his charities and generous actions were hearty and lavish enough to satisfy even his warm-hearted wife.

Joined with all this was a strong turn for speculations.  When the mind has once become absorbed in earthly visions of wealth and prosperity, the excitement exercises such a fascination over the senses that the judgment loses balance.  Bold assumptions are taken as certainties, and made the foundation of fresh fabrics—­the very power of discerning between fact and possibility departs, and, in mere good-will, men, honest and honourable at heart, risk their own and their neighbours’ property, and ruin their character and good name, by the very actions most foreign to to their nature, ere it had fallen under the strong delusion.

Mr. Frost Dynevor had the misfortune to live in a country rich in mineral wealth, and to have a brother-in-law easily guided, and with more love of figures than power of investigating estimates on a large scale.  Mines were set on foot, companies established, and buildings commenced, and the results were only to be paralleled by those of the chalybeate springs discovered by Mr. Dynevor at the little town of Northwold, which were pronounced by his favourite hanger-on to be destined ‘literally to cut the throat of Bath and Cheltenham.’