faint murmur as of pain. The Colonel was by the side of the suffering girl in one minute. She had arisen as if to leave the room, but her steps seemed too feeble to serve the purpose. St. Colmo put forth his arm for her support. She took it with both her hands, and, bending over it, burst into tears, while her whole frame trembled as if from sudden illness. At length she looked up, and, with a slight endeavour to smile away her tears, said, "I must not be sorry, if this is indeed my poor brother." With a further effort she recovered still more of her tranquillity, though she still looked pale; and looked so piteously towards the Colonel, that he, not knowing her second motive for regret, felt there was more of sorrow than he even had anticipated.

The full particulars were now laid before her; and these, requiring thought and deci

sion, lessened her emotion. Fulfilling all the legal instructions of Mr. Colyton, she executed the necessary documents, combating a sort of vague notion which he appeared to entertain, that this newly-found brother was a kind of Perkin Warbeck in private life. Showing him how very possible was all that had happened, she expressed pleasure in the delicacy which avoided a meeting until the lawsuit should be decided, and the identity of her brother be recognised; and supported by the governing principle of her life, in a few days she learnt to look tranquilly on what might be the results of the impending trial.

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CHAPTER IV.

"Therefore I do beseech you, use no farther means, But with all brief and plain conveniency

Let me have judgment.”

SHAKESPEARE.

For the next two months such was the excitement in the neighbourhood of Stokebree, that it might have been thought many more had an interest in the action now pending, of Mavesyn versus Mavesyn, than the orphan at The Cedars. In the particular law-court in which it was to be tried, there seemed to be considered, for once at least, that promp

titude was an excellent adjunct to justice; and the day soon arrived which saw assembled within its precints the plaintiff-Justin Mavesyn, his two learned counsel, his indefatigable solicitor, and his little band of witnesses, consisting of one or two masters of American trading-vessels-at that time at Liverpool, some West Indian sailors, and a merchant of New York. The defendant, Junie Mavesyn, was not in court. But the two St. Colmos and the two Colytons appeared there as her friends; while Mr. Beresford, with the able lawyers he had called to his assistance, and a few witnesses, consisting merely of old Bedford, the gardener, and a few labourers, brought up the forces.

As it was merely a question of identity, it might have been supposed that some of the pomp and circumstance" of law might have been omitted. But all went on in the usual

course. The opening speech of the counsel for the plaintiff—the sweet-smiling and softtoned Fitzloup, had its usual and infallible effect of gaining an anticipatory verdict from the females present, made known by loud and distinct whispering. The oration described the early years of Justin Mavesyn, as already known; his impatience at the solitude and confinement imposed on him; the particulars of his escape; his progress in a collier from Breemouth to Sunderland; and his working his way before the mast in a vessel bound from thence to Quebec. It then related his engagement as a cabin-boy in a West India trader, and every succeeding maritime service, until the recital reached that period when, at the residence of a friend at New York, he read the advertisement in the Times, and instantly resolved on his return to England; from which the fear of his