so bright and congenial. Captain
Anerley, madam, has shown true kindness in allowing me the privilege of
exclusive speech with you. Little did I hope for such a piece of luck
this morning. You have put so many things in a new and brilliant light,
that my road becomes clear before me. Justice must be done; and you feel
quite sure that Robin Lyth committed this atrocious murder because poor
Carroway surprised him so when making clandestine love, at your brother
Squire Popplewell's, to a beautiful young lady who shall be nameless.
And deeply as you grieve for the loss of such a neighbor, the bravest
officer of the British navy, who leaped from a strictly immeasurable
height into a French ship, and scattered all her crew, and has since had
a baby about three months old, as well as innumerable children, you
feel that you have reason to be thankful sometimes that the young man's
character has been so clearly shown, before he contrived to make his way
into the bosom of respectable families in the neighborhood."

"I never thought it out quite so clear as that, sir; for I feel so sorry
for everybody, and especially those who have brought him up, and those
he has made away with."

"Quite so, my dear madam; such are your fine feelings, springing from
the goodness of your nature. Pardon my saying that you could have no
other, according to my experience of a most benevolent countenance. Part
of my duty, and in such a case as yours, one of the pleasantest parts of
it, is to study the expression of a truly benevolent--"

"I am not that old, sir, asking of your pardon, to pretend to be
benevolent. All that I lay claim to is to look at things sensible."

"Certainly, yet with a tincture of high feeling. Now if it should happen
that this poor young man were of very high birth, perhaps the highest in
the county, and the heir to very large landed property, and a title,
and all that sort of nonsense, you would look at him from the very same
point of view?"

"That I would, sir, that I would. So long as he was proclaimed for
hanging. But naturally bound, of course, to be more sorry for him."

"Yes, from sense of all the good things he must lose. There seems,
however, to be strong ground for believing--as I may tell you, in
confidence, Dr. Upround does--that he had no more to do with it than you
or I, ma'am. At first I concluded as you have done. I am going to see
Mrs. Carroway now. Till then I suspend my judgment."

"Now that is what n