whom we have sent over
doubts her altogether. That there was a marriage is certain, but
he fears that this woman is not the old Countess. There were two
sisters, and it may be that this was the other sister."

Sir William was a good deal dismayed, but he recovered himself. The
stakes were so high that it was quite possible that the gentleman who
had been sent over might have been induced to open his eyes to the
possibility of such personation by overtures from the other side. Sir
William was of opinion that Mr. Flick himself should go to Sicily. He
was not sure that he, Sir William, her Majesty's Solicitor-General,
would not make the journey in person. He was by no means disposed to
give way. "They tell me that the girl is no better than she should
be," he said to Mr. Flick.

"I don't think so bad as that of her," said Mr. Flick.

"Is she a lady,--or anything like a lady?"

"I am told she is very beautiful."

"I dare say;--and so was her mother before her. I never saw a
handsomer woman of her age than our friend the Countess. But I could
not recommend the young lord to marry an underbred, bad girl, and a
bastard who claims to be his cousin,--and support my proposition
merely on the ground of her looks."

"Thirty-five thousand a year, Sir William!" pleaded the attorney.

"I hope we can get the thirty-five thousand a year for our client
without paying so dear for them."

It had been presumed that the real Countess, the original Countess,
the Italian lady whom the Earl had married in early life, would be
brought over, with properly attested documentary evidence in her
pocket, to prove that she was the existing Countess, and that any
other Countess must be either an impostor or a deluded dupe. No doubt
the old Earl had declared, when first informing Josephine Murray
that she was not his wife, that his real wife had died during the
few months which had intervened since his mock marriage; but it was
acknowledged on all sides, that the old Earl had been a villain and a
liar. It was no part of the duty of the young Earl, or of those who
acted for him, to defend the character of the old Earl. To wash that
blackamoor white, or even to make him whity-brown, was not necessary
to anybody. No one was now concerned to account for his crooked
courses. But if it could be shown that he had married the lady in
Italy,--as to which there was no doubt,--and that the lady was still
alive, or that she had been alive when the second m