account of the transaction which Sir John had manifested so great anxiety to conceal. The manner in which all this was said, so entirely took Sir John Steventon by surprise, that he was unable to interfere with a single word. Mrs Vincent, to whom the information was evidently quite new, concealed the embarrassment she felt in some general expressions of thanks to Mr Simpson. He, when he had fulfilled his object, rose, and making a profound bow to his host and hostess, quitted the house. His demeanour was such, that his host involuntarily returned his salutation with one of marked deference and respect. CHAPTER II. A year had rolled round, and Mrs Vincent was established in all her rights. Sir John Steventon had been disappointed in the fraudulent scheme he had devised; not disappointed, however, as he deemed, in the revenge he had taken on the man who had frustrated it. Payment of Mr Simpson's annuity was resisted, and the poor mathematician was in great straits for those necessaries of life, which, necessary as they may be, are often with a great portion of the human family very fortuitous. Ask not on what legal pretexts Sir John had been successful in inflicting this revenge. Such pretexts are "thick as blackberries." _Facilis est descensus_--No rich suitor ever sought long for admission into the Court of Chancery, however difficult even he may have found the escape from it. Neither, do we apprehend, is there any remedy for this abuse of law, in the legal reforms usually contemplated by our legislators. The only effective remedy, if we may be here permitted to give a remark, would be this--that the state administer civil justice at its own expense to rich and poor alike--that, as it protects each man's life and limb, so it should protect each man's property, which is the means of life, which is often as essential to him as the limbs by which he moves. This is the only mode of realizing that "equal justice" which at present is the vain boast of every system of jurisprudence, when the suitor has to pay for protection to his property.