h, if I had minded
you--and your aunts--" And the pent-up misery of the life that had
fallen lower and lower since the first step in evil, found its course
in a convulsive sob and shriek, so grievous that Alison was thankful for
Colin's promptitude in laying hold of Rose, and leading her out of the
room before him. Alison felt obliged to follow, yet could not bear to
leave Maria to policemen and prison warders.

"Maria, poor Maria, I am so sorry for you, I will try to come and see
you--"

But her hand was seized with an imperative, "Ailie, you must come, they
are all waiting for you."

How little had she thought her arm would ever be drawn into that arm, so
unheeded by both.

"So that is Edward's little girl! Why, she is the sweetest little
clear-headed thing I have seen a long time. She was the saving of us."

"It was well thought of by Colin."

"Colin is a lawyer spoilt--that's a fact. A first-rate get-up of a
case!"

"And you think it safe now?"

"Nothing safer, so Edward turns up. How he can keep away from such a
child as that, I can't imagine. Where is she? Oh, here--" as they came
into the porch in fuller light, where the Colonel and Rose waited for
them. "Ha, my little Ailie, I must make better friends with you."

"My name is Rose, not Ailie," replied the little girl.

"Oh, aye! Well, it ought to have been, what d'ye call her--that was a
Daniel come to judgment?"

"Portia," returned Rose; "but I don't think that is pretty at all."

"And where is Lady Temple?" anxiously asked Alison. "She must be grieved
to be detained so long."

"Oh! Lady Temple is well provided for," said the Colonel, "all the
magistrates and half the bar are at her feet. They say the grace and
simplicity of her manner of giving her evidence were the greatest
contrast to poor Rachel's."

"But where is she?" still persisted Alison.

"At the hotel; Maria's was the last case of the day, and she went away
directly after it, with such a choice of escorts that I only just spoke
to her."

And at the hotel they found the waggonette at the gateway, and Lady
Temple in the parlour with Sir Edward Morden, who, late as it was,
would not leave her till he had seen her with the rest of the party. She
sprang up to meet them, and was much relieved to hear that Mauleverer
was again secured. "Otherwise," she said, "it would have been all my
fault for having acted without asking advice. I hope I shall never do so
again."

She insisted that a