r would, nor ought to, take my word.'

'Just hear, papa, and you would know the chaff it was.'

'I cannot hear, Aubrey. If we were to discuss it, we might give it an
unconscious colouring. You must calm your mind, and exactly recall
what passed; but do not talk about it to me or to any one else. You
must do nothing to impair the power of perfect truth and accuracy,
which is a thing to be prayed for. If any one--even the lawyer who may
have to get up the case against him--asks you about it, you must refuse
to answer till the trial; and then--why, the issue is in the hands of
Him that judgeth righteously.'

'I shall never remember nor speak with his eyes on me, seeing me betray
him!'

'You will be no worse off than I, my boy, for I see I am in for
identifying Hector's rifle; the Mill people can't swear to it, and my
doing it will save his brother something.'

'No, it is not like me. O! I wish I had stayed at Eton, even if I had
died of it! Tom says it all comes of living with women that I can't
keep my mouth shut; and Leonard will be so hurt that I--'

'Nay, any tolerable counsel will make a capital defence out of the mere
fact of his rodomontading. What, is that no comfort to you?'

'What! to be the means of making a fool of him before all the
court--seeing him hear our talk by the river-side sifted by those
horrid lawyers?'

The Doctor looked even graver, and his eye fixed as on a thought far
away, as the boy's grief brought to his mind the Great Assize, when all
that is spoken in the ear shall indeed be proclaimed on the house-tops.

There was something almost childish in this despair of Aubrey, for he
had not become alarmed for the result of the trial. His misery was
chiefly shame at his supposed treason to friendship, and failure in
manly reserve; and he could not hold up his head all the evening, but
silently devoted himself to Mab, endeavouring to make her at home, and
meeting with tolerable success.

Tom was no less devoted to Ella Ward. It was he who had brought her
home, and he considered her therefore as his charge. It was curious to
see the difference that a year had made between her and Minna. They had
the last summer been like one child, and had taken the stroke that had
orphaned them in the same childish manner; but whether the year from
eight to nine had been of especial growth to Minna, or whether there
had been a stimulus in her constant association with Averil, the
present sorrow f