Here a successful lottery ticket had
been the foundation of his fortunes; he had invested it in the
mahogany trade, and had been one of those men with whom everything
turned up a prize. When a little over thirty, he had returned to his
own neighbourhood, looking any imaginable age. He had then purchased
Belforest, furnished it sumptuously, and laid out magnificent gardens
in preparation for his bride, a charming young lady of quality. But
she had had a young Lochinvar, and even in her wedding dress,
favoured by sympathising servants, had escaped down the back stairs
of a London hotel, and been married at the nearest Church, leaving
poor Mr. Barnes in the case of the poor craven bridegroom, into whose
feelings no one ever inquired.
Mr. Barnes had gone back to the West Indies at once, and never
appeared in England again till he came home, a broken and soured old
man, to die. There had been two sisters, and Caroline fancied that
the old farmer had had some tenderness for the elder one, but she had
married, before her brother's prosperity, a poor struggling builder,
and both had died young, leaving their child dependent on her uncle.
His younger sister had been the favourite; he had taken her back with
him to America, and, married her to a man of Spanish blood, connected
with him in business.
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