said the old lady, in a
haughty voice. 'I am obliged to Mrs Pansey for the way in which she has
distorted facts.'

'I fear, indeed, that Mrs Pansey exaggerates,' said Dr Pendle, shaking
his head.

'With all due respect, bishop, she is a wicked old Sapphira!' cried Miss
Whichello, and forthwith produced a bundle of papers out of her pocket.
'My unfortunate sister Annie did run away, but she was married to her
lover on the very day she left our house in London, and my darling Mab
is as legitimate as your son George, Dr Pendle.'

The bishop winced at this unlucky illustration. 'Have you a proof of
this marriage, Miss Whichello?' he asked, with a glance at the papers.

'Of course I have,' she replied, untying the red tape with trembling
fingers. 'Here is the certificate of marriage which my poor Annie gave
me on her dying bed. I would have shown it before to all Beorminster had
I known of Mrs Pansey's false reports. Look at it, bishop.' She thrust
it into his hand. 'Ann Whichello, spinster; Pharaoh Bosvile, bachelor.
They were married in St Chad's Church, Hampstead, in the month of
December 1869. Here is Mab's certificate of birth; she was christened in
the same church, and born in 1870, the year of the Franco-German war, so
as this is ninety-seven, she is now twenty-seven years of age, just two
years older than your son, Captain Pendle.'

With much interest the bishop examined the two certificates of birth and
marriage which Miss Whichello placed before him. They were both legally
perfect, and he saw plainly that however badly Bosvile might have
behaved afterwards to Ann Bosvile she was undoubtedly his wife.

'Not that he would have married her if he could have helped it,' went on
Miss Whichello, while the bishop looked at the documents, 'but Annie had
a little money--not much--which she was to receive on her wedding day,
so the wretch married her and wrote to my dear father for the money,
which, of course, under grandfather's will, had to be paid. Father never
would see Annie again, but when the poor darling wrote to me a year
afterwards that she was dying with a little child by her side, what
could I do but go and comfort her? Ah, poor darling Annie!' sobbed the
little old lady, 'she was sadly changed from the bright, beautiful girl
I remembered. Her husband turned out a brute and a ruffian and a
spendthrift. He wasted all her money, and left her within six months of
the marriage--the wretch! Annie tried to support