mother is nearly gone, and what I can make by
writing for newspapers and law magazines is
certainly not enough for the expenses of even
this small establishment."

"And the attorneys?" said the lady, who was,
indeed, none other than our former friend
Gabrielle Descartes, only we must now call her
Gabrielle Penmore. "Those cruel wicked
attorneys! Are they still as little ready to help
you as ever?"

"I might as well never have been 'called,'
for anything I can get to do from them."

"The wretches!"

"Gabrielle, they actually laugh at my foreign
accent, and say that so ridiculous an idea was
never heard of as a man getting up in a court
of law and pleading in doubtful English."

"My poor Gilbert, what are we to do? Such
a life as you lead, you ought to succeed. You
are always working and striving, and you have
no enjoyments, and such poor clothes, and––oh,
Gilbert, you are not sorry that you married
me?"

"Sorry! Well, in one respect. I am sorry
for having brought you into such a scrape."

"We shall get out of it yet. Look here,
Gilbert, suppose I commit some crime, and
then get you to defend me. I will, if you
like."

They both laughed heartily at this idea. Then
they came back to the original subject which
had been under discussion––the letter.

"It is curious," said Gabrielle, "this proposal
of your cousin's to come and live with us arriving
just at this moment. It would help us very
much, no doubt. "What sort of a person is she,
Gilbert?"

"I hardly know. I have heard my father
say that she is excessively vain, and rather
spiteful."

"Oh, Gilbert."

"Her father and my mother were first cousins,
so she and I are what lawyers call first cousins
once removed. I have only seen her once, and
I found her to be very much my senior––ten or
a dozen years, I should say––very carefully made
up, though, and with some pretension to good
looks. She told me that I had inherited
personally all the defects of both my parents, and
none of their beauties."

"What a dreadful woman."

"I don't think you could stand it, Gabrielle."

"Yes, but I intend to stand it. Look here,
Gilbert, we have got our way, and are married,
and together, which was what we wanted, and
which is a thing that few people attain to so
soon. Surely it would be very wrong for us
to complain and grumble at this small
inconvenience. You say she's very well off, so with
what she contributes we shall get on better in
our housekeeping, and then you'll be able to
have all sorts of comforts, and––"

Her husband tried to interrupt her, but she
went on.

"––and so shall I. And you won't have to
slave so hard, and you can devote yourself more
to law, which you like. Aud then you'll be
more in court and ready for anything that might
come in your way. And you'll get a chance,
and we shall become illustrious, and live happy
ever afterwards."

Yes, they were married. That boy and girl
attachment of the West Indian Island had come
to something at last. Gilbert Penmore was not
long––after he had once set foot on English
ground––in finding out his old playfellow, and
as every possible obstacle that could be devised
was put in the way of their intercourse––by the
special stipulation of Madame Descartes, extending
at last to an order consigning the young
lady to the care of an aunt living at Paris––it
came to pass that the young people took their
own way out of the difficulty, and on the very
day previous to that on which Gabrielle was to
have started for Paris were united by banns in
the parish church of St. Benet Fink, in the City
of London––the bridegroom having taken care
to occupy lodgings in that parish for a good
three weeks beforehand.

It was wrong, no doubt. It was a clandestine
act. They were flying in the face of parents
and friends. They were wanting in patience,
and truthfulness, and prudence. They did
wrong––and they suffered for it, as is commonly
the case.

They were very poor. Poor enough to have
to undergo many privations. Their poverty was
always staring them in the face, and meeting
them at every turn. Then they were living upon
their capital, such as it was. It was very little
now, and getting less every day. There was a
source of misery and anxiety at once. To know
that their little store was continually diminishing,
and to be mainly ignorant how it was to be
replenished.

The gaps and apertures in that small income
were not replenished, they were only patched
and gagged for a time by all that poor Gilbert
Penmore could do. After he was called, he sat
in his place in court day after day, the picture
of hope deferred. He knew that he was a
lawyer, that he had worked harder at law, and
studied its intricacies with greater perseverance,
than half the men whom he saw strutting into
court with their briefs conspicuous in their
hands. He knew that they were often shallow
and unsound in their arguments, superficial in
their apparent eloquence, brazen in their
insolence, and wrong in their facts, and yet, such is
the benumbing influence of non-success, that he
had at times to summon all the man within him
not to feel cowed before these men who he
knew were his inferiors. Still he worked harder
and harder. He watched the course of every
case, noted its peculiarities, observed what
precedents were quoted in connexion with its
details, and laid up precious matter for his own
future guidance. He never gave in. Sometimes,
indeed, it did seem rather hard to him that he
never got a chance, that he was never employed
as a junior to get up the particulars of a case,
or that when a prisoner on circuit was
undefended, the judge would never catch his anxiously