"He has been dead many years," replied Mr. Wilberforce. "But it was not the incumbent who married them: it was a strange clergyman who performed the ceremony, a friend of Robert Carr's." "How do you know that?" snapped Serjeant Siftem, bobbing up again. "Because he signed the register as having performed it," replied Mr. Wilberforce, confronting the Serjeant with a look as undaunted as his own. What cared Serjeant Siftem for being confronted? "How do you know he was a friend of Robert Carr's?" went on he. "In that I speak from hearsay. But there are many men of this city, older than I am, who remember that the Reverend Mr. Bell and Robert Carr were upon exceedingly intimate terms: they can testify it to you, if you choose to call them." Serjeant Siftem growled, and sat down; but was up again in a moment. "Who was clerk of the parish at that time?" asked he. "There was no clerk," replied the witness. "The office was in abeyance. Some of the parishioners wanted to abolish it; but they did not succeed in doing so." "Allow me to ask you, sir," resumed Serjeant Wrangle, "whether the entrance of the marriage there is not a proof of its having taken place?" "Most assuredly," replied Mr. Wilberforce. "A proof indisputable." But courts of justice, judges, and jury require ocular and demonstrative proof. It is probable there was not a soul in court, including the judge and Serjeant Siftem, but believed the evidence of the Reverend Mr. Wilberforce, even had they chosen to doubt that of Lawrence Omer; but the register negatively testified that there had been no marriage, and upon the register, in law, must rest the onus of proof. Had there been positive evidence, not negative, of the abstraction of the leaf from the register, had the register itself afforded such, the aspect of affairs would have been very different. Mr. Mynn testified that on the 2nd day of December he had looked and could find no trace of the marriage in the register: it was certainly evident that it was not in now. When the court rose that night, the trial had advanced down to the summing-up of the judge, which was deferred till morning: but it was felt by everybody that that summing-up would be dead against the client of Mr. Fauntleroy, and that Squire Carr had gained the cause. The squire, and his son Valentine, and Mynn and Mynn, and one or two of the lesser guns of the bar, but not the great gun, Serjeant Siftem, took a late dinner together, and drank toasts, and were as merry and uproarious as success could make them: and Westerbury, outside, echoed their sentiments--that 'cute old Fauntleroy had not a leg to stand upon. 'Cute old Fauntleroy--'cute enough, goodness knew, in general--was thinking the same thing, as he took a solitary chop in his own house: for he did not get home until long past the dinner-hour, and his daughters were out. After the meal was finished, he sat over the fire in a dreamy mood, he scarcely knew how long, he was so full of vexation.