But let the jurors turn from this view of the subject to the one he should now present to them. Let them see Mr. Trevethlan, when, for reasons entirely beside the question at issue, he had decided on marrying a person of inferior station, applying to his chaplain, as a matter of course, to perform the ceremony. Let them see him, on that gentleman's declining, preferring the same desire to this Mr. Ashton, then resident in the neighbourhood. Let them suppose the ceremony to have been really and duly performed by him, as it appears recorded in the register of baptisms. Let them recollect the disappearance of Ashton, and of Wyley, the witness. Let them see how two children were borne by Mrs. Trevethlan, and duly christened by the chaplain of the castle. Let them then turn to the conduct of her relations. Let them imagine the hopes raised, the desires excited by their great connection. Let them note one of these relatives permitted to hang about the castle as a sort of companion to the young heir. Let them suppose certain presumption to grow up, and to be suddenly checked by the expulsion of all the race. Let them conceive the consequent exasperation, and heighten it by an unfounded suspicion that the exalted peasant-woman was ill-used. Let them consider such feelings as still rankling when Michael Sinson enters the service of the claimant in this action. Let them think of him as actuated both by hope of reward and desire of revenge, devising this subtile scheme, and seeking only an agent to accomplish it. Let them find him meeting the ruined scoundrel, whom they had heard that day, and he thought they would have little difficulty in unravelling the dark plot, which was now, for the first time, publicly developed against the well-being, the happiness, and the good fame of an old and distinguished and honourable family. At the close of this address, Michael Sinson was called into the witness-box, and examined by Rereworth. "You are a relation, I believe, of the late Mrs. Trevethlan?" "A nephew of the late Margaret Basset." The witness was then led on, by further questions, to describe the hopes excited in his family by the marriage now in dispute; the manner in which he was allowed to hang about Trevethlan Castle; the offence which his demeanour gave to its owner, and the expulsion of his relations from their farm. Fencing with his examiner, he at first affected to treat this circumstance with indifference, but was forced by degrees into a confession of his bitter and rankling mortification. "And so, sir," Rereworth suddenly asked, "all your family considered this marriage to be perfectly good?" "It was for their interest," Sinson said, stammering. "For their interest, sir!" Seymour exclaimed indignantly. "Why, sir, was not Mrs. Trevethlan's good name at stake?" "My poor relative has been dead for a long time," the witness answered.