Of their jealousy of Berry, but for whose birth White
Ladies would have passed into their hands, they made but an open secret;
and, when he married my sister, who was his second cousin, and the
Mansels--Cousins Jonah and Jill--had thrown in their lot with us,
relations had become more strained than before. The conventions were,
however, observed. Calendars were exchanged at Christmas, birthdays were
recognized with a cold epistolary nod, and occasional calls were paid
and invitations issued. Their possession of all but two of the family
portraits was undoubted, and with nine points of the law in their favour
they were well armed. It was an open question whether the tenth point,
which was ours, was sufficiently doughty to lay the other nine by the
heels. Years ago counsel had advised that the law was dead in our
favour, but it was certain that Vandy and his sisters would resist any
claim we made with great bitterness, and the settlement of a family
quarrel in the public ring of the High Court was more than we could
stomach.
Still, the pictures were worth seeing. There were a Holbein, a Van Dyck,
three Gainsboroughs, and two from the brush of Reynolds among them, and,
so soon as she had learned of their existence, Adele had evinced an
eagerness to be shown the collection.
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