“Never!” Clare cried among her tears. Edgar shook his head, with a soft smile, as he went away. Of course, she would come to see it. Reason and simple sense must gain the day at last. So he thought, feeling perfectly persuaded that such were his own leading principles--calm reason and sober sense. Edgar rather prided himself upon their possession; and thus fortified with a conviction of what were the leading characteristics of his own mind, went to meet the family lawyer, and hear all about it in a sober and business-like way. CHAPTER VII. Mr. Fazakerley was a little brown man, with a wig--a man who might have appeared on any stage as the conventional type of a crafty solicitor. He was very much like a fox, with little keen red-brown eyes, and whiskers which were grizzled, yet still retained the reddish colour of youth. His wig, too, was reddish-brown, and might have been made out of a foxskin, so true was it to the colour and texture of that typical animal. As may be divined from the fact of his outward appearance, he was not in the very least like a fox or a conventional solicitor, but was a good, little, kind, respectable sort of man, chiefly distinguished for his knowledge of Lancashire families--their intermarriages, and the division of their properties and value of their land; on which points he was an infallible guide. He came forward to meet the young Squire with both his hands extended, and a smile beaming out of every wrinkle of his brown face. “Welcome home, Mr. Edgar,” he said; “welcome home, welcome to your own house,” with a warmth and effusion which betrayed that there was more than the usual occasion for such a welcome. He shook the young man’s hand so long, and so energetically, swaying it between both of his, that Edgar felt as if it must come off. “You don’t remember me, I can see,” said Mr. Fazakerley. “I never happened to be at home while you were at Arden; but I know you well, and how nobly you have behaved. So you must think of me as your old friend, and one always ready to serve you--me and everybody belonging to me--you must indeed.” “Thanks,” said Edgar, taken by surprise; “a thousand thanks. I never knew how rich I was in friends till now. Clare has just been telling me I ought to have known you all my life.” “So you ought, and so you should, but for--ah--circumstances, Mr. Edgar,” said the lawyer, “circumstances of a painful character--over which we had no control. Miss Clare said that, did she? And quite right too. Your sister is a very sweet young lady, Mr. Edgar. You may be proud of her. I don’t know her equal in Lancashire, and that is saying a great deal, for we are proud of our Lancashire witches. I have two daughters of my own, pretty girls enough, and I am very proud of them, I can tell you; but I don’t pretend that they come within a hundred miles of Miss Arden. You must not think me an impudent old fellow to talk of her so, for, as she says, I have known her all her life.”