of me."

To Lady Mason it appeared as though the man who was now showing to
all the crowd there assembled the chief scenes of her past life, had
been present and seen everything that she had ever done. He told the
jury of all who had been present in the room when that true deed had
been signed; he described how old Usbech had sat there incapable of
action; how that affair of the partnership had been brought to a
close; how those two witnesses had thereupon appended their name to a
deed; how those witnesses had been deceived, or partially deceived,
as to their own signatures when called upon to give their testimony
at a former trial; and he told them also that a comparison of
the signatures on the codicil with those signatures which were
undoubtedly true would lead an expert and professional judge of
writing to tell them that the one set of signatures or the other must
be forgeries. Then he went on to describe how the pretended codicil
must in truth have been executed--speaking of the solitary room in
which the bad work had been done, of the midnight care and terrible
solicitude for secrecy. And then, with apparent mercy, he attempted
to mitigate the iniquity of the deed by telling the jury that it had
not been done by that lady with any view to self-aggrandisement, but
had been brought about by a lamentable, infatuated, mad idea that she
might in this way do that justice to her child which that child's
father had refused to do at her instance. He also, when he told of
this, spoke of Rebekah and her son; and Mrs. Orme when she heard him
did not dare to raise her eyes from the table. Lucius Mason, when he
had listened to this, lifted his clenched hand on high, and brought
it down with loud violence on the raised desk in front of him. "I
know the merits of that young man," said Sir Richard, looking at
him; "I am told that he is a gentleman, good, industrious, and high
spirited. I wish he were not here; I wish with all my heart he were
not here." And then a tear, an absolute and true drop of briny
moisture, stood in the eye of that old experienced lawyer. Lucius,
when he heard this, for a moment covered his face. It was but for a
moment, and then he looked up again, turning his eyes slowly round
the entire court, and as he did so grasping his mother by the arm.
"He'll look in a different sort of fashion by to-morrow evening, I
guess," said Dockwrath into his neighbour's ear. During all this time
no change came over Lady M