140 The Wrong Man 



knows, land is cheap enough. If things recovered in the 

 country, an estate would be a good investment ; if not — 

 well, it did not matter to him ; he could afford it. 



So Mr. Higgs looked about him, read the advertise- 

 ments in the newspapers, and wrote to one or two house 

 agents, who filled his letterbox by every post with written 

 and printed accounts of properties for sale, maps, photo- 

 graphs, drawings in elevation and perspective, till it seemed 

 that all England was to let, and the choice became more 

 than embarrassing. At last he settled on Corinton Towers, 

 a huge pile of buildings in South Wiltshire, standing in 

 a large park, through which the river Corin flowed, 

 ' affording the most picturesque and diversified views, 

 plentifully stocked with trout,' the advertisement some- 

 what confusedly ran. The stables were large — rather 

 tumbledown, but that did not matter — there was enough 

 glass to afford employment for a small army of gardeners, 

 and any amount of wood and plantation. There were no 

 game-books for inspection ; but then there is no difficulty 

 about getting pheasants if a man can afford to pay for 

 them ; so Mr. Higgs wrote a cheque for five figures, and 

 the first not a small one, without winking, and thus 

 became ' Mr. Higgs, of Corinton Towers.' The Harmo- 

 nious Hues, of which a few years before he had felt so 

 proud, were to be sunk behind the Towers as much as 

 possible. 



Miss Matilda Higgs, only daughter and heiress, a 

 somewhat angular young lady of nine-and-twenty, with a 

 sharp nose and a corresponding voice, thought the Towers 

 a ' nasty, damp, dreary place ' ; but still county society, 

 into which she had no doubt that her father's w^ealth 

 would enable her to enter, and indeed to shine, had un- 

 known charms ; though, as it was Miss Higgs' s cue in life 



