great fisher, and
caught splendid trout--all did their best to help them to give a welcome
to the only visitor they ever had. The only visitor they ever had, as
far as the stately gentry knew. There was one, however, who came as
often as his master could give him a holiday long enough to undertake a
journey to so distant a place; but few knew of his being a guest at Miss
Monro's, though his welcome there was not less hearty than Mr.
Ness's--this was Dixon. Ellinor had convinced him that he could give her
no greater pleasure at any time than by allowing her to frank him to and
from East Chester. Whenever he came they were together the greater part
of the day; she taking him hither and thither to see all the sights that
she thought would interest or please him; but they spoke very little to
each other during all this companionship. Miss Monro had much more to
say to him. She questioned him right and left whenever Ellinor was out
of the room. She learnt that the house at Ford Bank was splendidly
furnished, and no money spared on the garden; that the eldest Miss
Hanbury was very well married; that Brown had succeeded to Jones in the
haberdasher's shop. Then she hesitated a little before making her next
inquiry:

"I suppose Mr. Corbet never comes to the Parsonage now?"

"No, not he. I don't think as how Mr. Ness would have him; but they
write letters to each other by times. Old Job--you'll recollect old Job,
ma'am, he that gardened for Mr Ness, and waited in the parlour when there
was company--did say as one day he heerd them speaking about Mr. Corbet;
and he's a grand counsellor now--one of them as goes about at
assize-time, and speaks in a wig."

"A barrister, you mean," said Miss Monro.

"Ay; and he's something more than that, though I can't rightly remember
what,"

Ellinor could have told them both. They had _The Times_ lent to them on
the second day after publication by one of their friends in the Close,
and Ellinor, watching till Miss Monro's eyes were otherwise engaged,
always turned with trembling hands and a beating heart to the reports of
the various courts of law. In them she found--at first rarely--the name
she sought for, the name she dwelt upon, as if every letter were a study.
Mr. Losh and Mr. Duncombe appeared for the plaintiff, Mr. Smythe and Mr.
Corbet for the defendant. In a year or two that name appeared more
frequently, and generally took the precedence of the other, whatever it
might