hat so great an iniquity
should be impossible. When the case against the so-called Countess
was, as it were, abandoned by the Solicitor-General, and the
great interests at stake thrown up, he would have put the conduct
of the matter into other hands. Then had come upon him the
bitterness of having to entertain in his own house the now almost
undisputed,--though by him still suspected,--heiress, on behalf of
his nephew, of a nephew who did not treat him well. And now the
heiress had shown what she really was by declaring her intention
of marrying a tailor! When that became known, he did hope that the
Solicitor-General would change his purpose and fight the cause.

The ladies of the family, the two aunts, had affected to disbelieve
the paragraph which Lady Fitzwarren had shown them with so much
triumph. The rector had declared that it was just the kind of thing
that he had expected. Aunt Julia, speaking freely, had said that it
was just the kind of thing which she, knowing the girl, could not
believe. Then the rector had come up to town to hear the trial, and
on the day preceding it had asked his nephew as to the truth of the
rumour which had reached him. "It is true," said the young lord,
knitting his brow, "but it had better not be talked about."

"Why not talked about? All the world knows it. It has been in the
newspapers."

"Any one wishing to oblige me will not mention it," said the Earl.
This was too bad. It could not be possible,--for the honour of all
the Lovels it could not surely be possible,--that Lord Lovel was
still seeking the hand of a young woman who had confessed that
she was engaged to marry a journeyman tailor! And yet to him, the
uncle,--to him who had not long since been in loco parentis to the
lord,--the lord would vouchsafe no further reply than that above
given! The rector almost made himself believe that, great as might
be the sorrow caused by such disruption, it would become his duty to
quarrel with the Head of his family!

He listened with most attentive ears to every word spoken by the
Solicitor-General, and quarrelled with almost every word. Would not
any one have imagined that this advocate had been paid to plead
the cause, not of the Earl, but of the Countess? As regarded the
interests of the Earl, everything was surrendered. Appeal was made
for the sympathies of all the court,--and, through the newspapers,
for the sympathies of all England,--not on behalf of the Earl who was
being def