What could this mean?  Spite of Mr. Ferret’s injunction, I could not help informing the sisters, who called soon after I received the note, that a discovery, esteemed of importance by our emissary, had been made; and they returned home with lightened hearts, after agreeing to repeat their visit on the day Mr. Ferret had named for his return.

On reaching my chambers about four o’clock in the afternoon of that day, I found the ladies there, and in a state of great excitement.  Mr. Ferret, my clerk had informed them, had called twice, and seemed in the highest spirits.  We had wasted but a few minutes in conjectures when Mr. Ferret, having ascended the stairs two or three at a time, burst, sans ceremonie, into the apartment.

“Good-day, sir.  Lady Compton, your most obedient servant; madam, yours!  All right!  Only just in time to get the writ sealed; served it myself a quarter of an hour ago, just as his lordship was getting into his carriage.  Not a day to lose; just in time.  Capital!  Glorious!”

“What do you mean, Mr. Ferret?” exclaimed Emily Dalston:  her sister was too agitated to speak.

“What do I mean?  Let us all four step, sir, into your inner sanctum, and I’ll soon tell you what I mean.”

We adjourned, accordingly, to an inner and more private room.  Our conference lasted about half an hour, at the end of which the ladies took their leave:  Lady Compton, her beautiful features alternately irradiated and clouded by smiles and tears, murmuring in a broken, agitated voice, as she shook hands with me, “You see, sir, he intended at last to do us justice.”

The news that an action had been brought on behalf of an infant son of the late Sir Harry Compton against the Earl of Emsdale, for the recovery of the estates in the possession of that nobleman, produced the greatest excitement in the part of the county where the property was situated.  The assize town was crowded, on the day the trial was expected to come on, by the tenantry of the late baronet and their families, with whom the present landlord was by no means popular.  As I passed up the principal street, towards the court-house, accompanied by my junior, I was received with loud hurraings and waving of handkerchiefs, something after the manner, I suppose, in which chivalrous steel-clad knights, about to do battle in behalf of distressed damsels, were formerly received by the miscellaneous spectators of the lists.  Numerous favors, cockades, streamers, of the Compton colors, used in election contests, purple and orange, were also slyly exhibited, to be more ostentatiously displayed if the Emsdale party should be beaten.  On entering the court, I found it crowded, as we say, to the ceiling.  Not only every seat, but every inch of standing-room that could be obtained, was occupied, and it was with great difficulty the ushers of the court preserved a sufficiently clear space for the ingress and egress of witnesses and counsel.  Lord Emsdale, pale