nd this sudden
resolution on his part frightened his wife. "Go up to London,
dearest! And why?"

"I will tell you why. They all say that I should speak to some man of
the law whom I may trust about this coming trial. I trust no one in
these parts. Not, mark you, that I say that they are untrustworthy.
God forbid that I should so speak or even so think of men whom I
know not. But the matter has become so common in men's mouths at
Barchester and at Silverbridge, that I cannot endure to go among
them and to talk of it. I will go up to London, and I will see your
cousin, Mr. John Toogood, of Gray's Inn." Now in this scheme there was
an amount of everyday prudence which startled Mrs. Crawley almost as
much as did the prospect of the difficulties to be overcome if the
journey were to be made. Her husband, in the first place, had never
once seen Mr. John Toogood; and in days very long back, when he and
she were making their first gallant struggle,--for in those days it
had been gallant,--down in their Cornish curacy, he had reprobated
certain Toogood civilities,--professional civilities,--which had been
proffered, perhaps, with too plain an intimation that on the score of
relationship the professional work should be done without payment.
The Mr. Toogood of those days, who had been Mrs. Crawley's uncle,
and the father of Mrs. Eames and grandfather of our friend Johnny
Eames, had been much angered by some correspondence which had grown
up between him and Mr. Crawley, and from that day there had been a
cessation of all intercourse between the families. Since those days
that Toogood had been gathered to the ancient Toogoods of old, and
the son reigned on the family throne in Raymond's Buildings. The
present Toogood was therefore first-cousin to Mrs. Crawley. But there
had been no intimacy between them. Mrs. Crawley had not seen her
cousin since her marriage,--as indeed she had seen none of her
relations, having been estranged from them by the singular bearing of
her husband. She knew that her cousin stood high in his profession,
the firm of Toogood and Crump,--Crump and Toogood it should have been
properly called in these days,--having always held its head up high
above all dirty work; and she felt that her husband could look for
advice from no better source. But how would such a one as he manage
to tell his story to a stranger? Nay, how would he find his way alone
into the lawyer's room, to tell his story at all,--so strange was