he distinctly says, that once satisfied in his own mind--not to the
conviction of his lawyer, mark you, nor to the conviction of men well
versed in evidence, and accustomed to sift testimony, but simply in his
own not very capacious intellect--that the estate belongs to Pracontal,
he 'll yield him up the possession without dispute or delay."

"He's a fool! there is no other name for him," said she, passionately.

"Yes, and his folly is very mischievous folly, for he is abrogating
rights he has no pretension to deal with. It is as well, at all events,
that this demand was addressed to us and not to your brother, for I'm
certain he'd not have refused his permission."

"I know it," said she, fiercely; "and if Lady Augusta only knew his
address and how a letter might reach him, she would never have written
to us. Time pressed, however; see what she says here. 'The case will
come on for trial in November, and if the papers have the value and
significance Count Pracontal's lawyers suspect, there will yet be time
to make some arrangement,--the Count would be disposed for a generous
one,--which might lessen the blow, and diminish the evil consequences of
a verdict certain to be adverse to the present possessor.'"

"She dissevers her interests from those of her late husband's family
with great magnanimity, I must say."

"The horrid woman is going to marry Pracontal."

"They say so, but I doubt it--at least, till he comes out a victor."

"How she could have dared to write this, how she could have had the
shamelessness to ask me,--_me_ whom she certainly ought to know,--to aid
and abet a plot directed against the estates--the very legitimacy of my
family--is more than I can conceive."

"She 's an implicit believer, one must admit, for she says, 'if on
examining the part of the wall behind the pedestal of the figure nothing
shall be found, she desires no further search.' The spot is indicated
with such exactness in the journal that she limits her request
distinctly to this."

"Probably she thought the destruction of a costly fresco might well
have been demurred to," said Lady Culduff, angrily. "Not but, for
my part, I 'd equally refuse her leave to touch the moulding in the
surbase. I am glad, however, she has addressed this demand to us, for I
know well Augustus is weak enough to comply with it, and fancy himself
a hero in consequence. There is something piquant in the way she hints
that she is asking as a favor what, f