gained, and the younger daughter. But Mr. Smirkie
was as obdurate as ever. Something of his ground was cut from under his
feet when Dick's new and peculiar habits were observed at dinner. Mr.
Smirkie did indeed cling to his doctrine that your real drunkard never
drinks at his meals; but when Dick, on being pressed in regard to wine,
apologised by saying that he had become so used to tea in the colonies
as not to be able to take anything else at dinner, the peculiarity was
discussed till he was driven to own that he had drank nothing stronger
for the last two years. Then it became plain that delirium tremens was
not written on his face quite so plainly as Mr. Smirkie had at first
thought, and there was nothing left but his trousers to condemn him. But
Mr. Smirkie was still confident. 'I don't think you can go beyond the
verdict,' he said. 'There may be a pardon, of course;--though I shall
never believe it till I see it. But though there were twenty pardons she
ought not to go back to him. The pardon does not alter the crime,--and
whether he was married in Australia, or whether he was not, she ought to
think that he was, because the jury has said so. If she had any feeling
of feminine propriety she would shut herself up and call herself Miss
Bolton.'

'I don't agree with you in the least,' said the Squire; 'and I hope I
may live to see a dozen little Caldigates running about on that lawn.'

And there were a few words upstairs on the subject between Mr. Smirkie
and his wife--for even Mrs. Smirkie and Aunt Polly at last submitted
themselves to Dick's energy. 'Indeed, then, if he comes out,' said the
wife, 'I shall be very glad to see him at Plum-cum-Pippins.' This was
said in a voice which did not admit of contradiction, and was evidence
at any rate that Dick's visit to Babington had been successful in spite
of the yellow trousers.

Chapter LII

The Fortunes of Bagwax

An altogether new idea had occurred to Bagwax as he sat in his office
after his interview with Sir John Joram;--and it was an idea of such a
nature that he thought that he saw his way quite plain to a complete
manifestation of the innocence of Caldigate, to a certainty of a pardon,
and to an immediate end of the whole complication. By a sudden glance at
the evidence his eye had caught an object which in all his glances he
had never before observed. Then at once he went to work, and finding
that certain little marks were distinctly legible, he b