thirty thousand a
year. Do you mean to come down to Yoxham this winter?"

"No."

"Are the horses to be kept there?" Now hitherto the rich rector had
kept the poor lord's hunters without charging his nephew ought for
their expense. He was a man so constituted that it would have been
a misery to him that the head of his family should not have horses
to ride. But now he could not but remember all that he had done, all
that he was doing, and the return that was made to him. Nevertheless
he could have bit the tongue out of his mouth for asking the question
as soon as the words were spoken.

"I will have them sold immediately," said the Earl. "They shall come
up to Tattersal's before the week is over."

"I didn't mean that."

"I am glad that you thought of it, uncle Charles. They shall be taken
away at once."

"They are quite welcome to remain at Yoxham."

"They shall be removed,--and sold," said the Earl. "Remember me to my
aunts. Good bye." Then the rector went down to Yoxham an angry and a
miserable man.

There were very many who still agreed with the rector in thinking
that the Earl's case had been mismanaged. There was surely enough of
ground for a prolonged fight to have enabled the Lovel party to have
driven their opponents to a compromise. There was a feeling that the
Solicitor-General had been carried away by some romantic idea of
abstract right, and had acted in direct opposition to all the usages
of forensic advocacy as established in England. What was it to him
whether the Countess were or were not a real Countess? It had been
his duty to get what he could for the Earl, his client. There had
been much to get, and with patience no doubt something might have
been got. But he had gotten nothing. Many thought that he had
altogether cut his own throat, and that he would have to take the
first "puny" judgeship vacant. "He is a great man,--a very great man
indeed," said the Attorney-General, in answer to some one who was
abusing Sir William. "There is not one of us can hold a candle to
him. But, then, as I have always said, he ought to have been a poet!"

In discussing the Solicitor-General's conduct men thought more
of Lady Anna than her mother. The truth about Lady Anna and her
engagement was generally known in a misty, hazy, half-truthful
manner. That she was engaged to marry Daniel Thwaite, who was now
becoming famous and the cause of a greatly increased business in
Wigmore Street, was certain. It was ce