"Here, again, you perceive a fine stroke of justice. If Squire Oglander had only extended his hospitalities to us, Christopher must have known Grace quite well, and I could not have brought them together so. At present he believes her to be a Miss Holland, from the United States of America; and as she has promised Miss Patch not to speak of her own affairs to anybody (according to her father's wish, in one of the Demerara letters), that idea of his might still continue; although she has begun to ask him questions, which are not at all convenient. But things must be brought to a point as soon as possible. Having the advantage of directing the inquiries, or at any rate being consulted about them, I see no great element of danger yet; and of course I launched all the first expeditions in every direction but the right one. That setting up of the tombstone by poor old Joan was a very heavy blow to the inquisitive." "But, my dear, that did not make the poor girl dead a bit more than she was dead before." "Miranda, you do not understand the world. The evidence of a tombstone is the strongest there can be, and beats that of fifty living witnesses. I won a most difficult case for our firm when I was an ardent youth, and the victory enabled me to aspire to your hand, by taking a mallet and a chisel, and a little nitric acid, and converting a 'Francis,' by moonlight, into a 'Frances.' I kept the matter to myself, of course; for your good father was a squeamish hand. But you have heard me speak of it." "Yes, but I thought it so wrong, my dear, even though, as you said, truth required it." "Truth did require it. The old stonemason had not known how to spell the word. I corrected his heterography; and we confounded the tricks of the evil ones. All is fair in love and law, so long as violence is done to neither. And now I wish Kit's unsophisticated mind to be led to the perception of that great truth. It is needful for him to be delicately admitted to a knowledge of my intentions. There is nobody who can do this as you can. He takes rather clumsy and obstinate views of things he is too young to understand. The main point of all, with a mind like his, is to dwell upon the justice of our case and the depth of our affection, which has led to such a sacrifice of the common conventional view of things." "My dear, but I have had nothing to do with it. Conception, plan, and execution are all your own, and no other person's. Why, I had not even dreamed----"