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Roger Carbury, of Carbury Hall, the owner of a small property in Suffolk, was the head of the Carbury fareat many years,--certainly from the time of the War of the Roses,--and had always held up their heads But they had never held theh It was not known that any had risen ever to the honour of knighthood before Sir Patrick, going higher than that, had been made a baronet They had, however, been true to their acres and their acres true to theh the perils of civil wars, Reformation, Commonwealth, and Revolution, and the head Carbury of the day had always owned, and had always lived at, Carbury Hall

At the beginning of the present century the squire of Carbury had been a considerable man, if not in his county, at any rate in his part of the county The income of the estate had sufficed to enable him to live plenteously and hospitably, to drink port wine, to ride a stout hunter, and to keep an old lu He had an old butler who had never lived anywhere else, and a boy froe as in a way apprenticed to the butler There was a cook, not too proud to wash up her own dishes, and a couple of young women;--while the house was kept by Mrs Carbury herself, who ave out her own linen,of her own hams In the year 1800 the Carbury property was sufficient for the Carbury house

Since that time the Carbury property has considerably increased in value, and the rents have been raised Even the acreage has been extended by the enclosure of coer coentleman's household If a moderate estate in land be left to a ed unless an income also be left to him ith to keep up the estate Land is a luxury, and of all luxuries is thebut land Suffolk has not been reat town had sprung up on the confines of the Carbury property No eldest son had gone into trade or risen high in a profession so as to add to the Carbury wealth No great heiress had been married There had been no ruin,--no misfortune But in the days of which rite the Squire of Carbury Hall had becoh the wealth of others His estate was supposed to bring him in £2,000 a year Had he been content to let the Manor House, to live abroad, and to have an agent at home to deal with the tenants, he would undoubtedly have had enough to live luxuriously