LAW-SUITS, John, are like the conversations of lovers, not very amusing to those not immediately concerned in them. I shall therefore spare you the voluminous history of the action of declarator of marriage, Barr v. Barr; and content myself with merely mentioning in general, that, after a prodigious variety of private letters and public pleadings had been interchanged, the lawyers on both sides were satisfied that the point was one of the extremest doubt and difficulty, and mutually recommended to their clients the settling of the dispute, if possible, by some compromise out of doors. My temper was sanguine; and the “savage virtue of the chase,” as the poet calls it, was by this time in full excitement within me, so I treated at first this proposition with great coldness. But when I found that I really had it in my power to establish immediately the legitimacy of my wife's birth, (a thing much nearer her heart, I believed then, and I believe now, than anything besides,) and to enter the same moment into possession of one-half of the estate of Barrmains—while, if I persisted in my litigation, there was at least a very considerable chance of our failing entirely, both in regard to the honour we were seeking, and the wealth consequent upon it;—I could not, I say, calmly balance these accounts, without perceiving that Joanne's dearest interests required me to accept of the offered compromise. The delight with which she heard me say that I was willing to act in this manner, (for she would never give her advice,) was more than I could describe. The arrangements were soon perfected; we were allowed to carry through our declarator without further opposition; and the estate was divided between the sisters, according to the judgment of three impartial private individuals—Barrmains house falling to the share of Joanne, as the elder of the two.

Here, then, was a reverse of fortune with a witness.

So long as the affair was of doubtful termination, I had resolutely stuck by the exercise of my profession, and we had, in no respect whatever, altered our mode of life at Maldoun.