The Lost Parchment by Fergus Hume — Read

For a widower with one grown-up daughter, Mr. Julius Mallien was very well off on an income of five hundred a year, for which he did not do a stroke of work. Like the lilies of the field he toiled not, neither did he spin, and, if not quite a Solomon-in-all-his-glory, he was quite comfortable, enjoying some of the luxuries of life as well as all the necessities. Born lazy and idle, he had never earned a single penny for himself during the fifty-odd years of his existence. First he had lived on his father and mother; afterward on his wife. Now that all three were dead, he managed to exist in a pleasantly easy way on the accumulated moneys they had left him. His picturesque six-roomed cottage, standing in a quarter acre of garden on the outskirts of Barship, was rented from the Squire at twenty pounds a year, yet he grumbled like an Irish tenant at the exactions of his landlord.

Dorinda, with the aid of one small servant, looked after the house, and Mallien was quite untroubled with domestic details. His daughter catered for him in strict accordance with his tastes, wholly setting her own aside, and from one year to another there was no change in the economy of the establishment. It therefore came about in quite a natural manner that Mr. Mallien spent the greater part of his income on himself.