r
friend, the Serjeant," said Mr. Flick. Serjeant Bluestone was the
leading counsel for our Countess, and was vehemently energetic in
this case. He swore everywhere that the Solicitor-General hadn't a
leg to stand upon, and that the Solicitor-General knew that he hadn't
a leg. Let them bring that Italian Countess over if they dared. He'd
countess her, and discountess her too! Since he had first known the
English courts of law there had been no case hard as this was hard.
Had not the old Earl been acquitted of the charge of bigamy, when
the unfortunate woman had done her best to free herself from her
position? Serjeant Bluestone, who was a very violent man, taking up
all his cases as though the very holding of a brief opposite to him
was an insult to himself, had never before been so violent. "The
Serjeant will take it as a surrender," said Mr. Flick.

"We must get round the Serjeant," said Sir William. "There are ladies
in the Lovel family; we must manage it through them." And so it was
arranged by the young Lord's lawyers that an attempt should be made
to marry him to the heiress.

The two cousins had never seen each other. Lady Anna had hardly heard
of Frederic Lovel before her father's death; but, since that, had
been brought up to regard the young Lord as her natural enemy. The
young Lord had been taught from his youth upwards to look upon the
soi-disant Countess and her daughter as impostors who would some day
strive to rob him of his birthright;--and, in these latter days, as
impostors who were hard at work upon their project. And he had been
told of the intimacy between the Countess and the old tailor,--and
also of that between the so-called Lady Anna and the young tailor. To
these distant Lovels,--to Frederic Lovel who had been brought up with
the knowledge that he must be the Earl, and to his uncle and aunt
by whom he had been brought up,--the women down at Keswick had been
represented as vulgar, odious, and disreputable. We all know how
firm can be the faith of a family in such matters. The Lovels were
not without fear as to the result of the attempt that was being
made. They understood quite as well as did Mr. Flick the glory of
the position which would attend upon success, and the wretchedness
attendant upon a pauper earldom. They were nervous enough, and in
some moods frightened. But their trust in the justice of their cause
was unbounded. The old Earl, whose memory was horrible to them, had
purposely le