dently have looked for some provision
on Maria's part at least equal to his own: in fact, the fond young
couple had reasonably set their hearts upon that golden mean--four
hundred a-year to begin with. Now, however, by two fell swoops--brother
John's dishonesty and Sir Thomas's resolve of disinheritance--all this
rational and moderate expectation had been dashed to atoms; and the
cottage of contented competence appeared but as a castle in the
clouds--a mere airy matter of undiluted moonshine. Thus, when that
happiest of honeymoons had dwindled down the hundred-pound bank-note
(shrewd John's well-expended bait) to the fractional part of a ten, and
our newly-married pair came to put together their united resources,
wherewithal to travel through the world, they could muster but very
little:--considering, too, the future, and the promise of an early
increase to provide for, forty-seven pounds was not quite a fortune; and
a few articles of jewellery did not much increase it.

We need not imagine that Henry calmly acquiesced without a struggle in
the roguish fraud which had impoverished him; but, notwithstanding all
his best endeavours, he found, to his dismay, that the case was
irremediable: the transfer-books, indeed, were evidence; and equity
would give credit for the trust: but that the "Independent bank" had
failed was a simple fact; and so long as John stood ready to swear he
had invested in it, there was an end to the business. Be sure, shrewd
Jack was not likely to leave any thing dubious or unsatisfactory in the
affair. Austral papers were easily got at now, cheap as whitey-brown;
and for any help the law could give him, poor Henry Clements might as
well engage the wind-raising services of a Lapland witch.

He must put his shoulder to the wheel without delay; manifestly, his
profession of the law, however unlucrative till now, must be the mighty
lever that should raise him quickly to the summit of opulence and fame:
and he vigorously set to work, as the briefless are forced to do,
inditing a new law-book, which should lift him high in honour with those
magnates on the bench; being, as he was, a court-counsel, not a chamber
one, an eloquent pleader too (if the world would only give him a
hearing), he unluckily took for his thesis the questionable '_Doctrine
of Defence_;' combating magnanimously on the loftiest moral grounds all
manner of received opinions, time-honoured fictions, legitimated
quibbles, and other thing