A gift of Heriot's--he had chosen it without her knowledge, and it had been delivered as a surprise--was a writing-table; a writing-table that was not meant merely to be a costly ornament. And one morning she sat down to it and began another attempt at a play. The occupation served to interest her, and now the days were not so empty. In the evening, as often as he was able, Heriot took her out to a theatre, or a concert, or to houses from which invitations came. The evenings were enchantingly new to her; less so, perhaps, when they dined at the solemn houses than when a hansom deposited them at the doors of a restaurant, and her husband's pocket contained the tickets for a couple of stalls. She was conscious that she owed him more than she could ever repay; and though she had casually informed him that she had begun a drama, she did not discuss the subject with him at any length. To dwell upon those eternal ambitions of hers was to remind him that she had said she would be dissatisfied, and he deserved something different from that; he deserved to forget it, to be told that she had not an ungratified wish! She felt ungrateful to realise that such a statement would be an exaggeration. In the November following the wedding it was seen that "Her Majesty had been pleased, on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor, to approve the name of George Langdale Heriot to the rank of Queen's Counsel," and Heriot soon found reason to congratulate himself on his step. A man may earn a large income as a Junior, and find himself in receipt of a very poor one as a Leader. There is an instance cited in the Inns of Court of a stuff-gownsman, making eight thousand a year, whose income fell, when he took silk, to three hundred. But Heriot's practice did not decline. Few men at the Bar could handle a jury better, or showed greater address in their dealings with the Bench. He knew instinctively the moment when that small concession was advisable, when the attitude of uncompromising rigour would be fatal to his case. He had his tricks in court: the least affected of men out of it, in court he had his tricks. Counsel acquire them inevitably, and one of Heriot's had been a favourite device of Ballantyne's: in cross-examination he looked at the witness scarcely at all, but kept his face turned to the jury-box. Why this should be persuasive is a mystery that no barrister can explain, but its effectiveness is undeniable. Nevertheless, he was essentially "sound." As he had been known as "a safe man" while a Junior, so, now that he had taken silk, he was believed in as a Leader. The figures on the briefs swelled enormously; his services were more and more in demand. Then by-and-by there came a criminal case that was discussed day by day throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom--in drawing-rooms and back parlours, in clubs and suburban trains, and Heriot was for the Defence. The Kensington study had held him until