g behind.

Old Mr. Jellicorse, of Middleton in Teesdale, had won golden opinions
every where. He was an uncommonly honest lawyer, highly incapable of
almost any trick, and lofty in his view of things, when his side of them
was the legal one. He had a large collection of those interesting boxes
which are to a lawyer and his family better than caskets of silver
and gold; and especially were his shelves furnished with what might be
called the library of the Scargate title-deeds. He had been proud to
take charge of these nearly thirty years ago, and had married on the
strength of them, though warned by the rival from whom they were wrested
that he must not hope to keep them long. However, through the peaceful
incumbency of ladies, they remained in his office all those years.

This was the gentleman who had drawn and legally sped to its purport the
will of the lamented Squire Philip, who refused very clearly to leave
it, and took horse to flourish it at his rebellious son. Mr. Jellicorse
had done the utmost, as behooved him, against that rancorous testament;
but meeting with silence more savage than words, and a bow to depart,
he had yielded; and the squire stamped about the room until his job was
finished.

A fact accomplished, whether good or bad, improves in character with
every revolution of this little world around the sun, that heavenly
example of subservience. And now Mr. Jellicorse was well convinced, as
nothing had occurred to disturb that will, and the life of the testator
had been sacrificed to it, and the devisees under it were his own good
clients, and some of his finest turns of words were in it, and the
preparation, execution, and attestation, in an hour and ten minutes
of the office clock, had never been equalled in Yorkshire before, and
perhaps never honestly in London--taking all these things into conscious
or unconscious balance, Mr. Jellicorse grew into the clear conviction
that "righteous and wise" were the words to be used whenever this will
was spoken of.

With pleasant remembrance of the starveling fees wherewith he used to
charge the public, ere ever his golden spurs were won, the prosperous
lawyer now began to run his eye through a duplicate of an abstract
furnished upon some little sale about forty years before. This would
form the basis of the abstract now to be furnished to Sir Walter
Carnaby, with little to be added but the will of Philip Yordas, and
statement of facts to be verified. Mr. Je