with her wishes, and the most thorough and flattering approbation of her views and projects, would be the result of her condescension; and to a certain degree there was justification for her expectations. On the face of it, and at the first cursory view of the unmotherly mother’s purpose, there was certainly something that was, at the least, plausible, to justify her undertaking. The late earl’s will had been made very late in life, and long after Lady Millicent had been taught (no difficult task) to consider herself the future possessor, during her natural life, of that rich inheritance. In causing the important clause which deposed after a certain period the mother _regnante_ in favour of the grown-up son, Lord Gillingham had, in his daughter’s opinion, departed in a most unjustifiable manner from the ways of his forefathers. Manifestly (as it was her purpose to prove) it was flagrantly unjust that such a will should stand. Long ago she had taken (privately) high legal opinions on the subject. She had consulted law-books, and entered largely into the question of precedents; the result of all which exertion and study was the visit to Lincoln’s-inn, which had been productive of nothing save anger and mortification. But because Lady Millicent could “make nothing” of the old lawyer, who was staunch in his adherence to Arthur Vavasour’s interests, it by no means followed that she felt any doubt either as to the rectitude of her project, or the advisableness of pursuing it to the end. She was a woman--as we know--of determined character, and, moreover, one in whom difficulty and opposition only increased in a tenfold degree the desire to succeed; so, without any unnecessary delay, she opened negotiations with another legal adviser, who took a different and more satisfactory view of the matter than that adopted by the uncompromising Josh; and one consequence of this proceeding was the remark made by Horace Vavasour to his sister Kate, on the ill consequences likely to accrue to Arthur from the bare rumour even of the proceeding in question. “But how can it hurt Atty so very much?” Kate asked. She was puzzled, and not without reason, by the anomaly, that Arthur, who had married that “immense” heiress, and of whom the millionaire Mr. Duberly was said to be so fond, could be injured in any way by the report of Lady Millicent’s law-proceedings.