less cleverly. There was cleverness in every line of his smooth dark face; there was uncommon shrewdness in his clear gray eyes. His father had the same face and the same eyes—with this difference added to the differences naturally due to age: there were wisdom, and dignity, and humanity in the face and glance of the Judge; but the nobility of expression thus given was not inherited by the Judge's younger son.
The Judge spoke again, breaking a silence of some minutes:—
'As you say, Mildred, it seems to have been all very wild and sudden; but when we have said this, we have probably said the worst there is to say. At least, let us hope so. Of my own knowledge many men have gone to Australia, as Alfred went, and come back with the best of wives. I seem to have heard, Granville, that that is what Merivale did; and I have met few more admirable women than Mrs Merivale.'
'It certainly is the case, sir,' said Granville, who had been patronised to some extent by Merivale, Q.C. 'But Mrs Merivale was scarcely "born and bred in the Bush"; and if she had what poor Alfred, perhaps euphemistically, calls "mannerisms"—I have
