Novels and Tales Henrietta Temple - 5 Author:Benjamin Disraeli Volume: 5 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1881 Original Publisher: Longmans, Green Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com wh... more »ere you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: BOOK U. CHAPTER L lABTLT RETROSPECTIVE, YET VERT NECESSARY TO BE PEKUSXD. Nearly five years bad elapsed between the event which formed the subject of our last chapter and the recal to England of the regiment in which Captain Armine now commanded a company. This period of time had passed away not unfruitful of events in the experience of that family, in whose fate and feelings I have attempted to interest the reader. In this interval Ferdinand Armine had paid one short visit to his native land; a visit which had certainly been accelerated, if not absolutely occasioned, by the untimely death of his cousin Augustus, the presumptive heir of Grandison. This unforeseen event produced a great revolution in the prospects of the family of Armine; for although the title and an entailed estate devolved to a distant branch, the absolute property of the old lord was of great amount; and, as he had no male heir now living, conjectures as to its probable disposition were now rife among all those who could possibly become interested in it. Whatever arrangement the old lord might decide upon, it seemed nearly certain that the Armine family must be greatly benefited. Some persons even went Bo far as to express their conviction that everything would be left to Mr. Armine, who everybody now discovered tohave always been a particular favourite with his grandfather. At all events, Sir Ratcliffe, who ever maintained upon the subject a becoming silence, thought it as well that his son should remind his grandfather personally of his existence; and it was at his father's suggesti...« less