"Shelley said you were a little bit of a man,with watery blue eyes,and whiter hair than mine.""Oh I say!"cried Robert."She must have been stringin'you!"Leon just whooped;because while Mr.Paget didn't talk like the 'orse,'ouse people,he made you think of them in the way he said things,and the sound of his voice.Then we had dinner,and I don't remember that we ever had quite such a feast before.
Mother had put on every single flourish she knew.She used her very best dishes,and linen,and no cook anywhere could beat Candace alone;now she had Mrs.Freshett to help her,and mother also.If she tried to show Mr.Paget,she did it!No visitor was there except him,but we must have been at the table two hours talking,and eating from one dish after another.Candace LIKED to wear her white dress,and carry things around,and they certainly were good.
And talk!Father,Laddie,and Robert talked over all creation.
Every once in a while when mother saw an opening,she put in her paddle,and no one could be quicker,when she watched sharp and was trying to make a good impression.Shelley was very quiet;she scarcely spoke or touched that delicious food.Once the Paget man turned to her,looking at her so fondlike,as he picked up one of her sauce dishes and her spoon and wanted to feed her.
And he said:"Heah child,eat your dinnah!You have nawthing to be fussed ovah!I mean to propose to you,and your parents befowr night.That is what I am heah for."Every one laughed so,Shelley never got the bite;but after that she perked up more and ate a little by herself.
At last father couldn't stand it any longer,so he began asking Robert about his trip to England,and the case he had won.When the table was cleared for dessert,Mr.Paget asked mother to have Candace to bring his satchel.He opened it and spread papers all over,so that father and Laddie could see the evidence,while he told them how it was.
It seemed there was a law in England,all of us knew about it,because father often had explained it.This law said that a man who had lots of money and land must leave almost all of it to his eldest son;and the younger ones must go into law,the army,be clergymen,or enter trade and earn a living,while the eldest kept up the home place.Then he left it to his eldest son,and his other boys had to work for a living.It kept the big estates together;but my!it was hard on the younger sons,and no one seemed even to think about the daughters.I never heard them mentioned.
Now there was a very rich man;he had only two sons,and each of them married,and had one son.The younger son died,and sent his boy for his elder brother to take care of.He pretended to be good,but for sure,he was bad as ever he could be.He knew that if his cousin were out of the way,all that land and money would be his when his uncle died.So he went to work and he tried for years,and a lawyer man who had no conscience at all,helped him.At last when they had done everything they could think of,they took a lot of money and put it in the pocket of the son they wanted to ruin;then when his father missed the money,and the house was filled with policemen,detectives,and neighbours,the bad man said he'd feel more comfortable to have the family searched too,merely as a formality,so he stepped out and was gone over,and when the son's turn came,there was the money on him!That made him a public disgrace to his family,and a criminal who couldn't inherit the estate,and his father went raving mad and tried to kill him,so he had to run away.At first he didn't care what he did,so he came over here.Robert said that man was his best friend,and as men went,he was a decent fellow,so he cheered him up all he could,and went to work with all his might to prove he was innocent,and to get back his family,and his money for him.
When Robert had enough evidence that he was almost ready to start to England,his man got a cable from an old friend of his father's,who always had believed in him,and it said that the bad man was dying--to come quick.So Robert went all of a sudden,like the Dead Letters told about.Now,he described how he reached there,took the old friend of the father of his friend with him,and other witnesses,and all the evidence he had,and went to see the sick man.When Robert showed him what he could prove,the bad man said it was no use,he had to die in a few days,so he might as well go with a clean conscience,and he told about everything he had done.Robert had it all written out,signed and sworn to.He told about all of it,and then he said to father:"Have I made it clear to you?"Leon was so excited he forgot all the manners he ever had,for he popped up before father could open his head,and cried:"Clear as mud!I got that son business so plain in my mind,I'd know the party of the first part,from the party of the second part,if I met him promenading on the Stone Wall of China!"Father and Laddie knew so much law they asked dozens of questions;but that Robert man wasn't a smidgin behind,for every clip he had the answer ready,and then he could go on and tell much more than he had been asked.He said as a Case,it was a pretty thing to work on;but it was much more than a case to him,because he always had known that his friend was not guilty;that he was separated from his family,suffering terribly under the disgrace,and they must be also.He had worked for life for his friend,because the whole thing meant so much to both of them.
He said he must go back soon and finish up a little more that he should have done while he was there,if it hadn't been that he received no word from Shelley.
"When I didn't heah from heh for so long,and wrote so many letters,and had no reply,I thought possibly some gay `young Lochinvah had come out from the west,'and taken my sweet 'eart,"he said,"and while I had my armour on,I made up my mind that I'd give him a fight too.I didn't propose to lose Shelley,if it were in my powah to win heh.I hadn't been able to say to heh exactly what I desiahed,on account of getting a start alone in this country;but if I won this case,I would have ample means.
