is guest, the parson of Utterden.

'Yes; I have seen a good deal of them.'

'Do you think it possible?'

'Not probable,' said the clergyman.

'I don't,' said the Squire. 'I suppose he was a little wild out there,
but that is a very different thing from bigamy. Young men, when they
get out to those places, are not quite so particular as they ought to
be, I daresay. When I was young, perhaps I was not as steady as I ought
to have been. But, by George! here is a man comes over and asks for a
lot of money; and then the woman asks for money; and then they say that
if they don't get it, they'll swear the fellow was married in
Australia. I can't fancy that any jury will believe that.'

'I hope not.'

'And yet, Madame,'--the Squire was in the habit of calling his wife
Madame when he intended to insinuate anything against her,--'has got it
settled in her head that this young woman isn't his wife at all. I think
it's uncommon hard. A man ought to be considered innocent till he has
been found guilty. I shall go over and see him one of these days, and
say a kind word to her.'

There was at that moment some little difference of opinion, which was
coming to a head in reference to a very delicate matter. When the
conversations above related took place, the Babington wedding had been
fixed to take place in a week's time. Should cousin John be invited, or
should he not? Julia was decidedly against it. 'She did not think,' she
said, 'that she could stand up at the altar and conduct herself on an
occasion so trying if she were aware that he were standing by her.' Mr.
Smirkie, of course, was not asked,--was not directly asked. But equally,
of course, he was able to convey his own opinion through his future
bride. Aunt Polly thought that the county would be shocked if a man
charged with bigamy was allowed to be present at the marriage. But the
Squire was a man who could have an opinion of his own; and after having
elicited that of Mr. Bromley, insisted that the invitation should be
sent.

'It will be a pollution,' said Julia, sternly, to her younger sisters.

'You will be a married woman almost before you have seen him,' said
Georgiana, the second, 'and so it won't matter so much to you. We must
get over it as we can.'

Julia had been thought by her sisters not to bear the Smirkie triumph
with sufficient humility; and they, therefore, were sometimes a little
harsh to her. 'I don't think you understand it at all,' said Julia. 'Yo