"How can I call her Lady Anna before I have made up my mind to
think that she is Lady Anna?" said the parson, almost in tears. As to
the rest of the family, it may be said that they had come silently to
think that the Countess was the Countess and that the Lady Anna was
the Lady Anna;--silently in reference to each other, for not one of
them except the young lord had positively owned to such a conviction.
Sir William Patterson had been too strong for them. It was true that
he was a Whig. It was possible that he was a traitor. But he was a
man of might, and his opinion had domineered over theirs. To make
things as straight as they could be made it would be well that the
young people should be married. What would be the Earldom of Lovel
without the wealth which the old mad Earl had amassed?

Sir William and Mr. Flick were strongly in favour of the marriage,
and Mr. Hardy at last assented. The worst of it was that something of
all this doubt on the part of the Earl and his friends was sure to
reach the opposite party. "They are shaking in their shoes," Serjeant
Bluestone said to his junior counsel, Mr. Mainsail. "I do believe
they are not going to fight at all," he said to Mr. Goffe, the
attorney for the Countess. Mr. Mainsail rubbed his hands. Mr. Goffe
shook his head. Mr. Goffe was sure that they would fight. Mr.
Mainsail, who had worked like a horse in getting up and arranging all
the evidence on behalf of the Countess, and in sifting, as best he
might, the Italian documents, was delighted. All this Sir William
feared, and he felt that it was quite possible that the Earl's
overture might be rejected because the Earl would not be thought to
be worth having. "We must count upon his coronet," said Sir William
to Mr. Flick. "She could not do better even if the property were
undoubtedly her own."

But how was the first suggestion to be made? Mr. Hardy was anxious
that everything should be straightforward,--and Sir William assented,
with a certain inward peevishness at Mr. Hardy's stiff-necked
propriety. Sir William was anxious to settle the thing comfortably
for all parties. Mr. Hardy was determined not only that right should
be done, but also that it should be done in a righteous manner. The
great question now was whether they could approach the widow and her
daughter otherwise than through Serjeant Bluestone. "The Serjeant is
such a blunderbuss," said the Solicitor-General. But the Serjeant
was counsel for these ladies,