embraced her future daughter-in-law, whose cheeks burned like fire, while those of Mr Delamere tingled a little.

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Upon my honour, sir, you seem to have been making hay while the sun shines," said his lordship in a low tone, and laughing, having left Miss Aubrey and Lady De la Zouch together for a few moments.

"Dearest Lady De la Zouch, how did my brother bear it ?" enquired Miss Aubrey.

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"He bore it with calmness, though he turned very pale; but poor Mrs Aubrey was very painfully excited-it was really a most affecting scene. But she is much better now-shall we return to the house?-By the way," added she slyly, now you're come into your fortune, as the saying is, Kate—I—I suppose Geoffry has been talking nonsense to you!" Poor Kate blushed deeply, and burst into tears.

That was a happy day, and Mr Runnington, having been compelled to stay to dinner, returned home at a late hour, feeling already richly repaid for all his exertions. Miss Aubrey sat up till a late hour in her own room writing, according to a promise she had given, a very long letter to Dr Tatham, in which she gave him as full an account as she could of the surprising and decisive event which had happened. 'Twas quite the letter of a daughter to a fond father-full of ardent affection, and joyous anticipations of seeing him again; but as to the other little incident of the day, which concerned herself personally, Kate paused-laid down her pen-resumed it--blushed-hesitated_ and at length extinguished her taper and retired to rest, saying to herself that she would think of it, and make up her mind by the morning.

The letter went off, however, after all, without the slightest allusion to the possibility of its lovely writer becoming a future Lady De la Zouch.

But it is now high time that the reader should be put into possession of the important disclosures produced by the ecclesiastical enquiry; and we must for a while lose sight of the happy Aubreys, and also of the gloomy, discomfited Gammon, in order to become acquainted with the exact state of facts which had called forth such violent and opposite emotions.

CHAPTER X.

THE reader may possibly bear in mind that Mr Titmouse had established his right to succeed to the Yatton property, then enjoyed by Mr Aubrey, by making out to the satisfaction of the jury, on the trial at York, that he, the aforesaid Mr Titmouse, was descended from an elder branch of the Aubrey family: that there had existed an unsuspected female descendant of Stephen Dreddlington, the elder brother of Geoffry Dreddlington, through whom Mr Aubrey derived his claim to the succession; and that this obscure female descendant had left issue equally obscure and unsuspected-viz. Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse -to whom our friend Titmouse was shown to be heir-at-law. In fact, it had been made out in open court, by clear and satisfactory evidence, First, that the aforesaid Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse was the direct descendant, through the female line, of Stephen Dreddlington; Secondly, had been shown the marriage of Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse; Thirdly, the birth of Tittlebat Titmouse, the first, and indeed the only issue of that marriage. All these were not only proved, but unquestionable facts; and from them, as far as descent went, the preferable right of Titmouse to that of Aubrey, resulted as an inevitable inference, and the verdict went accordingly. But as soon as, according to the happy and invaluable suggestion of the Attorney-General, a rigid enquiry had been instituted on the spot, whence the oral and documentary evidence had been obtained by Mr Gammon-an enquiry conducted by persons infinitely more familiar with such matters than common lawyers, those acute and indefatigable inquisitors succeeded in making the following remarkable discovery. It was found that the two old witnesses who had been called to prove that part of the case, on the trial, had since died-one of them very recently. But in pushing their enquiries, one or two other

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VOL. III.

old witnesses were met with who had not been called by Mr Gammon, even if he had been aware of their existence; and one of these, an old man, while being closely interrogated upon another matter, happened to let fall some expressions which startled the person making minutes of the evidence; for he spoke of Mr Titmouse's mother under three different names, Gubbins, Oakley, and Johnson. Now, the proof of the trial had been simply the marriage of Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse, by bans, to Janet Johnson, spinster. Either, then, both the witnesses must be mistaken as to her having had other names, or there must be some strange mystery at the bottom of it—and so it at length turned out. This woman's maiden name had been Gubbins; then she had married a ropemaker, of the name of Oakley, in Staffordshire, but had separated from him, after two or three years' quarrelsome cohabitation, and gone into Yorkshire, where she had resided for some time with an aunt-in fact, no other a person than old Blind Bess. Afterwards, she had become acquainted with Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse; and, to conceal the fact of her previous marriage her husband being alive at the time-she was married to Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse under the name of "Johnson." Two years afterwards, this exemplary female died, leaving an only child, Tittlebat Titmouse. Shortly afterwards, his father came up to London, bringing with him his little son—and some five years afterwards died, leaving one or two hundred pounds behind him for the bringing up of Tittlebat decently—a duty undertaken by a distant relative of his father, and who had been dead some years. Of course Titmouse, at the time when he was first presented to the reader, knew no more than the dead of his being in any way connected with the distinguished family of the Aubreys in Yorkshire; nor of the very unpleasant circumstances attending his mother's marriage, with which the reader has just been made acquainted. Nothing can be easier than to conceive how Mr Gammon might have been able, even if acquainted with the true state of the facts, to produce an impregnable case in court by calling, with judgment, only that evidence which was requisite to show the marriage of Titmouse's father with Janet Johnson-viz. an examined copy of an entry in the parish register of Grilston; of the fact of the marriage under the names specified; and some other slight evidence of the identity of the parties.

How was the Attorney-General, or any one advising him, to have got at the mystery attending the name of "Johnson," in the absence of suspicion pointed precisely at that circumstance? The defendant in an action of ejectment, is necessarily in a great measure in the dark as to the evidence which will be adduced against him, and must fight the evidence as it is presented to him in court; and the plaintiff's attorney is generally better advised than to bring into court witnesses who may be able, if pressed, to disclose more than is necessary or desirable !

The way in which Mr Gammon became acquainted with the true state of the case was singular. While engaged in obtaining and arranging the evidence in support of the plaintiff's case, under the guidance of Mr Lynx's opinion, Mr Gammon stumbled upon a witness who dropped one or two expressions, which suddenly reminded him of two little documents which had been some time before put into his possession, without his having then attached the least importance to them. He was so disturbed at the coincidence, that he returned to town that very night to inspect the papers in question. They had been obtained by Snap from old Blind Bess: in fact, (inter nos,) he had purloined them from her on one of the occasions of his being with her in the manner long ago described, having found them in an old Bible which was in a still older canvass bag; and they consisted of, first, a letter from one James Oakley to his wife, informing her that he was dying, and that, having heard she was living with another man, he exhorted her to leave her wicke courses before she died; secondly, a letter from one Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse to his wife, reproaching her with drunkenness and loose conduct, and saying that she knew as well as he did, that he could transport her any day he liked; therefore, she had better mind what she was about. This letter was written in the county jail, whither he had been sent for some offence against the game-laws. Blind Bess had been very feeble when her niece came to live with her; and, though aware of her profligate conduct, had never dreamed of the connexion between the great family at the Hall and her niece's child. These were the two documents which Mr Titmouse had destroyed, on Gammon's having entrusted them for a moment into his hands. Though I do not attach so much importance to them as Mr Gammon did-since I cannot see how

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they could have been made available evidence for any purpose contemplated by Gammon-I am not surprised at his doing so. They were infinitely too dangerous documents to admit of his taking the opinion of counsel upon; he therefore kept them entirely to himself, as also the discovery to which they led, not trusting his secret even to either of his partners. Before the case had come into court, Mr Gammon had been in possession of the facts now laid for the first time before the reader-contemplating, from the first, the use to be thereafter made of the prodigious power he should have become possessed of, in aid of his own personal advancement. Thus was Titmouse base-born indeed—in fact, doubly illegitimate; for, first, his mother had been guilty of bigamy in marrying his father; and, secondly, even had that not been so, her marrying under a false name had been sufficient to make the marriage utterly void, and equally of course to bastardize her issue.

Such, then, was the damning discovery effected by the ecclesiastical commission, and which would by and by blazon to the whole world the astounding fact, that this doubly base-born little wretch had been enabled, by the profound machinations of Mr Gammon, not only to deprive Mr Aubrey of the Yatton estates, but also to intermarry with the Lady Cecilia, the last of the direct line of the noble Dreddlingtons and Drelincourts-to defile the blood, and blight the honour, of perhaps the oldest and the proudest of the nobility of England. Upon Mr Gammon, it lit like a thunderbolt. For many hours he seemed to have been utterly crushed and blasted by it. His faculties appeared paralyzed. He was totally incapable of realizing his position-of contemplating the prodigious and appalling consequences which must inevitably and almost immediately ensue. He lay upon sofa the whole night without closing his eyes, or having moved a muscle since he had thrown himself down upon it. His laundress came in with his bed-candle, trimmed the lamp, stirred the fire, and withdrew, supposing him asleep. The fire went out-then the lamp and when, about eight o'clock the next morning, his laundress reappeared, he still lay on the sofa; and a glimpse of his pale and haggard face alarmed her greatly, and she went for a medical man before he was aware of her having done so. On her returning, and informing him of what she had done, it roused

the