Mr. Flip burned to add his shot to the
volley of oaths discharged by the post-boys,
horse-keepers, and stable-idlers; but the
melancholy state of his mind, and respect
for the satin and fur inside, restrained
him. At last the rackety leader was
restrained also; and the coach would
have started, if it had not been hailed
by a servant in the rumble, asking loudly
for Dr. Bole. The guard, Mr. Flip's sworn
friend, in apprising the doctor of this
summons, persuaded Mrs. Tuckey to join her
daughter on the outside, Mr. Vollum being
engaged in copying names from the way-bill.
Dr. Bole was not long in getting out, and
making his deferential bow at the carriage-
door.

"The crisis is so imminent, that I have
come myself," said Mrs. Calder Dornley.
"We cannot expect to find old Mr. Dornley
alive when we get to Bath. I wish it was
not so far off." The lady leaned very far back
in her carriage to escape public observation;
to which the coming trial of George Dornley
had greatly subjected the family.

"You see, Dr. Bole," she remarked, when
the doctor had transferred his luggage from
the stage-coach to the Crookston-Hall
carriage , " the death of Mr. Dornley would be
very inconvenient to us were it to happen
before the trial is over. If the wretched
young man is found guilty before the entail
can be cut off, and while he is even in nominal
possession, the property would be forfeited to
the crown, and go quite out of the family."
Mrs. Calder Dornley said this very calmly:
not in the least like a person in dread of a
near relative being hanged next week.

The good old physician looked steadfastly
into Mrs. Calder's face. " His son and heir
might possibly recover it upon petition," he
said. The lady's round black eyeballs flashed;
but she divided the words of her reply
with her usual deliberation. " Just so—if he
had a son."

The change of horses having been made,
the carriage rolled away towards Bath.

Meanwhile, what with the delay, and
the successes of his rival achieved in his
own coach, Mr. Flip was in a state of mind to
drive like a desperado. If the mere upsetting
of the Swiftsure could bring mortal injury
upon the lawyer without crumpling so much
as a ribbon-end of Mrs. Tuckey's bonnet,
there is no knowing what might happen;
but, when Mr. Flip found that by the guard's
good offices his splendid lady-love had been
induced to change her place inside, for the seat
outside, next to him, and that her blithe little
daughter was merrily shaking her curls on the
roof beside the deposed " box-seat," he became
another man, and was so merciful to his
beasts that, when he dawdled into the yard
of the King's Arms at Derby, he was fined
eleven half-crowns for being eleven minutes
behind time. Nor did Mr. Vollum take
the absence of his beloved landlady much
to heart; for he had a vast deal to cram
Mr. Marsden with, now he knew him to be
the junior who was to bear the whole brunt
of Dornley's defence.

He was, however, much chagrined to find—
while delicately helping the lady down the
ladder at the journey's end—that her sprig of
rosemary had been transferred to the button-
hole of his now jolly rival.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

IT required all Mr. Flip's strength of limb
and voice and all his good-nature to work his
way with the blooming mother and daughter,
next morning, through the surging and
swerving multitude that choked up St. Mary's
gate, before the Derby County Hall. Half
an hour's labour had brought the little party
no farther than the doorof the edifice; and they
would not have got even into the outer hall,
but for the chance assistance of Mr. Frontis
the Nottingham special constable, who used
his staff and his treble voice (too weak to
disturb the proceedings within) so adroitly,
that his friends managed to struggle into the
court time enough to hear part of the opening
of the prosecuting counsel's speech. The
landlady had been greatly mortified that Mr.
Vollum, after promising to obtain a good
place for her in the great range of temporary
seats (that her daughter, being the first
witness to be called, might be saved from
herding with the other witnesses), had not
appeared at all. The effect of this lapse on
Mr. Flip's mind was, on the contrary, quite
exhilarating.

Mrs. Tuckey's ribbons and furs and satins,
did everything, however, to get good places.
Room was involuntarily made for her and her
daughter on the front seat, Flip standing
respectfully beside them in the crowd. Mrs.
Tuckey was extraordinarily confused; not
so much by the sharp artillery of eyes
discharged at her pictorial attire from
every corner of the court, as from the
frequent reference then being made by
Serjeant Moss to her establishment at Nottingham.
At first her daughter was too much
amazed and absorbed to mind being
constantly mentioned. The brown faces, the
white wigs, and the purple vestments of the
judges, amused her; the expansive presence
and deep-voiced " Silence! " of the crier of
the court, awed her; the haggard, callous
look of her friend the prisoner, pained her;
and the constant glances of his counsel (her
mother's fellow-traveller) towards the door,
whenever it opened; puzzled her. But pre-
sently she too was covered with blushes; for
Serjeant Moss was again mentioning her in his
smoothest tones. " I shall bring the barmaid
before you," he was saying, wiping his
forehead and balancing his bulging figure between
the seat of the inner bar and the edge of the
table, " to prove that the prisoner arrived at
the Royal George at Nottingham on the
afternoon of the day laid in the indictment—