"My lords and gentlemen and my good friends, you know what we are assembled here for. 'Tis for me to present you to my kinsman and heir. That I have already done individually; later on I shall ask you as a body to testify your willingness to acknowledge him as such. But first, and ere that is done, I wish to expose to you two villains--one of them, alas! also near to me in blood--who have long stood in the path of his lordship, who have endeavoured in every way to thwart his honest endeavours to come by his own, and who, in those endeavours, have assailed the fair fame of his mother, Louise, Dowager Viscountess St. Amande, who sits now behind that organ." And the Marquis pointed to a great organ made by Geisler of Salzburg in 1650, and brought by his father from there when making the grand tour. 'Twas there, indeed, that she had placed herself, being unwilling to be more regarded than was necessary, either by those who knew of her unhappy married days or who had known her in the full pride of her beauty. But as she had taken this place, where she could easily overhear all that passed, she had again reiterated her assertion that, should the two calumniators persist in their falsehoods and vile assertions, she would endeavour so to nerve herself to the task as to drag herself forward and confront them. "To expose those villains, my lords and gentlemen," went on the Marquis, "this is what I have done. I have summoned Robert St. Amande to this house to-day--it wants but a quarter of an hour to the time when he should arrive," pointing to the great clock over the fireplace, "and I have requested him to come provided with the proofs which he says he can bring forward establishing his claim to be my successor. My lords, he has fallen into the snare, he has notified to me that he will be here at midday with Mr. Considine, his friend and secretary, when he will advance such proofs, as he states, that Lord St. Amande is not entitled to the rank he usurps, and desires in future to usurp, that he, Robert, must be the right and lawful heir." "Was not this Mr. Wolfe Considine once proscribed?" asked a gentleman sitting near, who was no other than His Majesty's Attorney-General, Sir Philip Yorke. "It appears to me I know his name." "He was proscribed in 1710 for most treasonable practices and fled to Hamburg, where he was supported by the Jacobites, but, on the accession of His late Majesty, he, with many others, obtained a withdrawal of that proscription on swearing allegiance to the House of Hanover. But, my lords and gentlemen, I will call your attention to the fact that this proscription entirely proves the grossness of the lie he asserts, that he is the father of Lord St. Amande, since he could not have been in England for some long time either before or after his lordship's birth." "And is this Mr. Robert St. Amande's only ground on which to base his claim to both titles--Lord St. Amande's and yours?" asked Sir Robert Walpole.