rising attorneys, like Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap,
happening to get hold of them, and family papers in their possession,
had taken up their case. When, with impressions such as these, Mr.
Aubrey perused and re-perused the opinions of the conveyancer given on
the occasion of his (Mr. Aubrey's) marriage, he was confounded at the
supineness and indifference which he had even twice exhibited, and felt
disposed now greatly to overvalue the importance of every adverse
circumstance. The boldness, again, and systematic energy with which the
case of the claimant was prosecuted, and the eminent legal opinions
which were alleged, and with every appearance of truth, to concur in his
favor, afforded additional grounds for rational apprehension. He looked
the danger, however, full in the face, and as far as lay in his power,
as a conscientious man, prepared for the evil day which might so soon
come upon him. Certain extensive and somewhat costly alterations which
he had been on the point of commencing at Yatton, he abandoned. But for
the earnest interference of friends, he would at once have given up his
establishment in Grosvenor Street, and applied for the Chiltern
Hundreds, in order to retire from political life. Considering the
possibility of his soon being declared the wrongful holder of the
property, he contracted his expenditure as far as he could, without
challenging unnecessary public attention; and paid into his banker's
hands all his Christmas rents, sacredly resolving to abstain from
drawing out one farthing of what might soon be proved to belong to
another. At every point occurred the dreadful question--if I am declared
never to have been the rightful owner of the property, how am I to
discharge my frightful liabilities to him who is? Mr. Aubrey had nothing
except the Yatton property. He had but an insignificant sum in the
funds; Mrs. Aubrey's settlement was out of lands at Yatton, as also was
the little income bequeathed to Kate by her father. Could anything be
conceived more dreadful, under these circumstances, than the mere
danger--the slightest probability--of their being deprived of
Yatton?--and with a debt of at the very least SIXTY THOUSAND POUNDS, due
to him who had been wrongfully kept out of his property? That was the
millstone which seemed to drag them all to the bottom. Against _that_,
what could the kindness of the most generous friends, what could his own
most desperate exertions, avail? All this had poo