This jarred on Mrs. Dodd. She bore it in silence some time; but with the grief it revived and sharpened by contrast, and the polite effort to hide her distress, found herself becoming hysterical: then she made the usual signal to Julia, and beat an early retreat. She left Julia in the drawing-room, and went and locked herself in her own room. “Oh, how can they be so cruel as to laugh and giggle in my David's house!” She wept sadly, and for the first time felt herself quite lonely in the world: for what companionship between the gay and the sad hearted? Poor thing, she lived to reproach herself even with this, the nearest approach she ever made to selfishness. Ere long she crept into Julia's room and humbly busied herself packing her trunks for the wedding tour. The tears fell fast on her white hands. She would not have been left alone a minute if Julia's mind had not been occupied just then with an affectionate and amiable anxiety: she earnestly desired to reconcile her Alfred and his sister before the wedding; and she sat in the drawing-room thinking whether it could be done, and how. At last she sat down blushing, and wrote a little note, and rang the bell for Sarah, and sent it courageously into the dining-room. Sarah very prudently listened at the keyhole before entering, for she said to herself, “If they are talking free, I shan't go in till it's over.” The persons so generously suspected were discussing a parchment Alfred had produced, and wanted signed: “You are our trustee, my boy,” said he to Edward: “so just write your name here, and mine comes here, and the witness's there: the Doctor and Sarah will do. Send for a pen.” “Let's read it first, please.” “Read it! What for?” “Catch me signing a paper without reading it, my boy.” “What, can't you trust me?” inquired Alfred, hurt. “Oh yes. And can't you trust me?” “There's a question: why I have appointed you my Trusty in the Deed; he, he.” “Well then trust me without my signing, and I'll trust you without reading.” Sampson laughed at this retort, and Alfred reddened; he did not want the Deed read. But while he hesitated, Sarah came in with Julia's note, asking him to come to her for a minute. This sweet summons made him indifferent to prosaic things. “Well, read away,” said he: “one comfort, you will be no wiser.” “What, is it in Latin?” asked Edward with a wry face. “No such luck. Deeds used to be in Latin; but Latin could not be made obscure enough. So now Dark Deeds are written in an unknown tongue called 'Lawyerish,' where the sense is 'as one grain of wheat in two bushels of chaff,' pick it out if you can. “Whatever man has done man may do,” said Dr. Sampson stoutly. “You have rid it, and yet understood it: so why mayn't we, ye monster o' conceit?”