."

Day after day passed and still the case dragged on. Erica became so
accustomed to spending the day in court that at last it seemed to her
that she had never done anything else all her life. Every day she hoped
that she might be called, longing to get the hateful piece of work over.
But days and weeks passed, and still Mr. Cringer and his learned friends
examined other witnesses, but kept her in reserve. Mr. Bircham had been
exceedingly kind to her, and in the "Daily Review" office, where Erica
was treated as a sort of queen, great indignation had been caused by Mr.
Pogson;'s malice. "Our little lady" (her sobriquet there) received the
hearty support and sympathy of every man in the place from the editor
himself to the printer's devil. Every morning the office boy brought her
in court the allotted work for the day, which she wrote as well as
she could during the proceedings or at luncheon time, with the happy
consciousness that all her short comings would be set right by the
little Irish sub-editor who worshipped the ground she trod on and was
always ready with courteous and unofficious help.

There were many little pieces of kindness which served to heighten
that dreary summer for Mr. Pogson's ill-advised zeal had stimulated
all lovers of justice into a protest against a most glaring instance
of bigotry and unfair treatment. Many clergymen spoke out bravely and
denounced the defendant's intolerance; many non-conformist ministers
risked giving dire offense to their congregations by saying a good word
for the plaintiff. Each protest did its modicum of good, but still
the weary case dragged on, and every day the bitterness on either side
seemed to increase.

Mr. Pogson had, by fair means or foul, induced an enormous number of
witnesses to come forward and prove the truth of his statement, and day
after day there were the most wearisome references to old diaries, to
reports of meetings held in obscure places, perhaps more than a dozen
years ago, or to some hashed and mangled report of a debate which,
incredible though such meanness seems, had been specially constructed by
some unscrupulous opponent in such a way as to alter the entire meaning
of Raeburn's words--a process which may very easily be effected by a
judicious omission of contexts. Raeburn was cheered and encouraged,
however, in spite of all the thousand cares and annoyances of that time
by the rapidly increasing number of his followers, and by many tokens o