Chapter XLVIII. The Angel of Light Under a Cloud.
Chapter XLIX. Mrs. Furnival Can't Put Up with It.
Chapter L. It is Quite Impossible.
Chapter LI. Mrs. Furnival's Journey to Hamworth.
Chapter LII. Showing How Things Went on at Noningsby.
Chapter LIII. Lady Mason Returns Home.
Chapter LIV. Telling All That Happened Beneath the Lamp-post.
Chapter LV. What Took Place in Harley Street.
Chapter LVI. How Sir Peregrine Did Business with Mr. Round.
Chapter LVII. The Loves and Hopes of Albert Fitzallen.
Chapter LVIII. Miss Staveley Declines to Eat Minced Veal.
Chapter LX. What Rebekah Did for Her Son.
Chapter LXI. The State of Public Opinion.
Chapter LXII. What the Four Lawyers Thought About It.
Chapter LXIII. The Evening Before the Trial.
Chapter LXIV. The First Journey to Alston.
Chapter LXV. Felix Graham Returns to Noningsby.
Chapter LXVI. Showing How Miss Furnival Treated Her Lovers.
Chapter LXVII. Mr. Moulder Backs His Opinion.
Chapter LXVIII. The First Day of the Trial.
Chapter LXX. How Am I to Bear It?
Chapter LXXI. Showing How John Kenneby and Bridget Bolster Bore Themselves in Court.
Chapter LXXII. Mr. Furnival's Speech.
Chapter LXXIII. Mrs. Orme Tells the Story.
Chapter LXXIV. Young Lochinvar.
Chapter LXXVI. I Love Her Still.
Chapter LXXVII. John Kenneby's Doom.
Chapter LXXVIII. The Last of the Lawyers.
Chapter LXXX. Showing How Affairs Settled Themselves at Noningsby.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE GREAT ORLEY FARM CASE.
It is not true that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet. Were it true, I should call this story "The Great Orley Farm Case." But who would ask for the ninth number of a serial work burthened with so very uncouth an appellation? Thence, and therefore,—Orley Farm.
I say so much at commencing in order that I may have an opportunity of explaining that this book of mine will not be devoted in any special way to rural delights. The name might lead to the idea that new precepts were to be given, in the pleasant guise of a novel, as to cream-cheeses, pigs with small bones, wheat sown in drills, or artificial manure. No such aspirations are mine. I make no attempts in that line, and declare at once that agriculturists will gain nothing from my present performance. Orley Farm, my readers, will be our scene during a portion of our present sojourn together, but the name has been chosen as having been intimately connected with certain legal questions which made a considerable stir in our courts of law.
It was twenty years before the date at which this story will be supposed to commence that the name of Orley Farm first became known to the wearers of the long robe. At that time had died an old gentleman, Sir Joseph Mason, who left behind him a landed estate in Yorkshire of considerable extent and value. This he bequeathed, in a proper way, to his eldest son, the Joseph Mason, Esq., of our date. Sir Joseph had been a London merchant; had made his own money, having commenced the world, no doubt, with half a crown; had become, in turn, alderman, mayor, and knight; and in the fulness of time was gathered to his fathers. He had purchased this estate in Yorkshire late in life—we may as well become acquainted with the name, Groby Park—and his eldest son had lived there with such enjoyment of the privileges of an English country gentleman as he had been able to master for himself. Sir Joseph had also had three daughters, full sisters of Joseph of Groby, whom he endowed sufficiently and gave over to three respective loving husbands. And then shortly before his death, three years or so, Sir Joseph had married a second wife, a lady forty-five years his junior, and by her he also left one son, an infant only two years old when he died.
For many years this prosperous gentleman had lived at a small country house, some five-and-twenty miles from London, called Orley Farm. This had been his first purchase of land, and he had never given up his residence there, although his wealth would have entitled him to the enjoyment of a larger establishment. On the birth of his youngest son, at which time his eldest was nearly forty years old, he made certain moderate provision for the infant, as he had already made moderate provision for his young