a moment grimly with herself.

"You know how heartily I admire your courage, and your devotion to my
unfortunate son," she said. "You know by this time that _I_ don't cant.
But I cannot see you attempt to perform impossibilities; I cannot let
you uselessly risk your reputation and your happiness without warning
you before it is too late. My child, the thing you have got it in your
head to do is not to be done by you or by anybody. Give it up."

"I am deeply obliged to you, Mrs. Macallan--"

"'Mother!'"

"I am deeply obliged to you, mother, for the interest that you take in
me, but I cannot give it up. Right or wrong, risk or no risk, I must and
I will try it!"

Mrs. Macallan looked at me very attentively, and sighed to herself.

"Oh, youth, youth!" she said to herself, sadly. "What a grand thing
it is to be young!" She controlled the rising regret, and turned on me
suddenly, almost fiercely, with these words: "What, in God's name, do
you mean to do?"

At the instant when she put the question, the idea crossed my mind that
Mrs. Macallan could introduce me, if she pleased, to Miserrimus Dexter.
She must know him, and know him well, as a guest at Gleninch and an old
friend of her son.

"I mean to consult Miserrimus Dexter," I answered, boldly.

Mrs. Macallan started back from me with a loud exclamation of surprise.

"Are you out of your senses?" she asked.

I told her, as I had told Major Fitz-David, that I had reason to think
Mr. Dexter's advice might be of real assistance to me at starting.

"And I," rejoined Mrs. Macallan, "have reason to think that your whole
project is a mad one, and that in asking Dexter's advice on it you
appropriately consult a madman. You needn't start, child! There is no
harm in the creature. I don't mean that he will attack you, or be rude
to you. I only say that the last person whom a young woman, placed in
your painful and delicate position, ought to associate herself with is
Miserrimus Dexter."

Strange! Here was the Major's warning repeated by Mrs. Macallan, almost
in the Major's own words. Well! It shared the fate of most warnings. It
only made me more and more eager to have my own way.

"You surprise me very much," I said. "Mr. Dexter's evidence, given at
the Trial, seems as clear and reasonable as evidence can be."

"Of course it is!" answered Mrs. Macallan. "The shorthand writers and
reporters put his evidence into presentable language before they printed
it. If you had