should not
have dreamed of refusing my assistance as a family lawyer. All that
would have gone for nothing then."

"When evil creeps in," said Dolly, sententiously, "you cannot put it
right afterward."

"Never mind about that. We shall never get to the end if you go back to
Adam and Eve."

"People don't go back often enough."

"Bother!" said Mr. Grey, finishing his second and last glass of
port-wine. "Do keep yourself in some degree to the question in dispute.
In advising an attorney of to-day as to how he is to treat a client you
can't do any good by going back to Adam and Eve. Augustus is the heir,
and I am bound to protect the property for him from these money-lending
harpies. The moment the breath is out of the old man's body they will
settle down upon it if we leave them an inch of ground on which to
stand. Every detail of his marriage must be made as clear as daylight;
and that must be done in the teeth of former false statements."

"As far as I can see, the money-lending harpies are the honestest lot of
people concerned."

"The law is not on their side. They have got no right. The estate, as a
fact, will belong to Augustus the moment his father dies. Mr.
Scarborough endeavored to do what he could for him whom he regarded as
his eldest son. It was very wicked. He was adding a second and a worse
crime to the first. He was flying in the face of the laws of his
country. But he was successful; and he threw dust into my eyes, because
he wanted to save the property for the boy. And he endeavored to make it
up to his second son by saving for him a second property. He was not
selfish; and I cannot but feel for him."

"But you say he is the wickedest man the world ever produced."

"Because he boasts of it all, and cannot be got in any way to repent. He
gives me my instructions as though from first to last he had been a
highly honorable man, and only laughs at me when I object. And yet he
must know that he may die any day. He only wishes to have this matter
set straight so that he may die. I could forgive him altogether if he
would but once say that he was sorry for what he'd done. But he has
completely the air of the fine old head of a family who thinks he is to
be put into marble the moment the breath is out of his body, and that he
richly deserves the marble he is to be put into."

"That is a question between him and his God," said Dolly.

"He hasn't got a God. He believes only in his own reason,--and is cont