etested
London, and would like nothing better than to live at Eastwich near her
own people. Also she showed him that his rather extensive estate needed
personal attention, and could be much improved in value if he were there
to care for it.

The end may be guessed; Anthony gave up the Bar and the house in
Chelsea. After staying at Torquay for a few of the winter months,
where his health improved enormously, they moved to Eastwich during the
following May. Here their welcome was warm indeed, not only from the
Rectory party, who rejoiced to have Barbara back among them, but from
the entire neighbourhood, including the tenants and labourers on the
property.

The ensuing summer was one of the happiest of their married life.
Anthony became so much better that Barbara began to believe he had
thrown off his lung weakness. Certain repairs and rearrangements of
their old Elizabethan house agreeably occupied their time, and, to crown
all, on Christmas Eve Barbara gave birth to a son, an extraordinarily
fine and vigorous child, red-haired, blue-eyed, and so far as could be
seen at that early age entirely unlike either of his parents.

The old doctor who ushered him into the world remarked that he had never
seen a more splendid and perfect boy, nor one who appeared to possess a
robuster constitution.

In due course Mr. Walrond christened him by the name of Anthony, after
his father, and a dinner was given to the tenants and labourers in
honour of the event.

That same month, there being a dearth of suitable men with an adequate
knowledge of the law, Anthony, who already was a magistrate, though so
young, was elected a Deputy-Chairman of Quarter Sessions for his county.
This local honour pleased him very much, since now he knew that
his legal education would not be wasted, and that he would have an
opportunity of turning it to use as a judge of minor cases.

Yet this grateful and conciliatory appointment in the end brought him
evil and not good. The first Quarter Sessions at which he was called
upon to preside in one of the courts fell in February, when he ought
to have been out of the East of England. The calendar was heavy, and
Anthony acquitted himself very well in the trial of some difficult
cases, earning the compliments of all concerned. But on leaving the hot
court after a long day he caught a heavy cold, which awoke his latent
complaint, and from that time forward he began to go down hill.

Still, watched, fought ag