Mr.
Twemlow had borne great troubles well, and been cheerful even under
long suspense; but now a disappointment close at home, and the grief
of beholding his last hopes fade, were embittered by mystery and dark
suspicions. In despair at last of recovering his son, he had fastened
upon his only daughter the interest of his declining life; and now he
was vexed with misgivings about her, which varied as frequently as she
did. It was very unpleasant to lose the chance of having a grandchild
capable of rocking in a silver cradle; but that was a trifle compared
with the prospect of having no grandchild at all, and perhaps not even
a child to close his eyes. And even his wife, of long habit and fair
harmony, from whom he had never kept any secret--frightful as might be
the cost to his honour--even Mrs. Twemlow shook her head sometimes, when
the arrangement of her hair permitted it, and doubted whether any of the
Carne Castle Carnes would have borne with such indignity.
"Prosecute him, prosecute him," this good lady always said. "You ought
to have been a magistrate, Joshua--the first magistrate in the Bible was
that--and then you would have known how to do things. But because you
would have to go to Sir Charles Darling--whose Sir can never put him on
the level of the Carnes--you have some right feeling against taking out
a summons. In that I agree with you; it would be very dreadful here. But
in London he might be punished, I am sure; and I know a great deal
about the law, for I never had any one connected with me who was not
a magistrate; the Lord Mayor has a Court of his own for trying the
corporation under the chair; and if this was put properly before him by
a man like Mr.
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