so got a note from Dr Thorne, stating that he had taken up
his temporary domicile at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house, so as to be
near the lawyers.

It has been suggested that the modern English writers of fiction
should among them keep a barrister, in order that they may be set
right on such legal points as will arise in their little narratives,
and thus avoid that exposure of their own ignorance of the laws,
which, now, alas! they too often make. The idea is worthy of
consideration, and I can only say, that if such an arrangement can be
made, and if a counsellor adequately skilful can be found to accept
the office, I shall be happy to subscribe my quota; it would be but a
modest tribute towards the cost.

But as the suggestion has not yet been carried out, and as there is
at present no learned gentleman whose duty would induce him to set
me right, I can only plead for mercy if I be wrong allotting all Sir
Roger's vast possessions in perpetuity to Miss Thorne, alleging also,
in excuse, that the course of my narrative absolutely demands that
she shall be ultimately recognised as Sir Roger's undoubted heiress.

Such, after a not immoderate delay, was the opinion expressed to Dr
Thorne by his law advisers; and such, in fact, turned out to be the
case. I will leave the matter so, hoping that my very absence of
defence may serve to protect me from severe attack. If under such
a will as that described as having been made by Sir Roger, Mary
would not have been the heiress, that will must have been described
wrongly.

But it was not quite at once that those tidings made themselves
absolutely certain to Dr Thorne's mind; nor was he able to express
any such opinion when he first met Frank in London. At that time
Mary's letter was in Frank's pocket; and Frank, though his real
business appertained much more to the fact of Sir Louis's death, and
the effect that would immediately have on his father's affairs, was
much more full of what so much more nearly concerned himself. "I will
show it Dr Thorne himself," said he, "and ask him what he thinks."

Dr Thorne was stretched fast asleep on the comfortless horse-hair
sofa in the dingy sitting-room at the Gray's Inn Coffee-house when
Frank found him. The funeral, and his journey to London, and the
lawyers had together conquered his energies, and he lay and snored,
with nose upright, while heavy London summer flies settled on his
head and face, and robbed his slumbers of half their char