“I should be sorry to trifle with you on so tender a subject,” said Burton, “but I mean what I say. You have borne adversity like a heroine; let us now see what effect prosperity will have. Here is copy of your grandfather’s will, which I have just seen for the first time. By it his property is _entailed_, as lawyers call it; that is, it is settled upon your father and his immediate descendants, to pass from one generation to another, according to the English rule of primogeniture. Your father could not sell it in the way he did, (of which he was no doubt ignorant,) and you, being his only child, have a full and perfect right to it under the will.” “But if it was sold and paid for, would it be right for me to claim it from the purchaser?” “It will be right, at all events, to defend yourself from persecution. The property is yours by the law of the land, and if Lander obtained it, as we have good reason to believe he did, he ought not to be allowed to keep it. I will advise you to nothing that is not becoming in a dutiful child. Better this poverty than the consciousness of having acted unjustly: but we will consult with some discreet friend, and then do what we may conclude to be right.” Lucy was grave and thoughtful; she had long been accustomed to suppress her feelings of vanity and pride, and had become entirely reconciled to her humble fortunes; but her heart fluttered at the thought of being the owner of ample possessions, and of those scenes, too, from which she had never been able entirely to wean her affections. But then came other reflections. Was it possible that her father had practiced a fraud for her benefit? And, if so, would it be right for her to take advantage of it? The law might give her the property, but would truth and justice allow her to take it? After careful inquiry, it was deemed proper that suit should be brought; and Burton, remembering the maxim that “the lawyer who pleads his own cause has a fool for his client,” employed counsel to conduct it for him. No sooner had this suit been brought, than Witherman hastened to Lander: “I see, sir,” said he, “that Burton has brought suit in the name of his wife for the recovery of the property you purchased from her father.” “He has; and what can it mean? The claims which I had against him were notes given at the gambling table, but they had been put in circulation, and I understood you, that he couldn’t dispute them in my hands. Or has he discovered that I knew for what they were given?” “He has made a worse discovery than that.” “What! do you really think he has the means of supporting his claim?”