never seen so much dogged determination exhibited in so hopeless a
case. And I really could not help admiring the fellow's spirit and
uncultured force of mind, as much misapplied as, of course, I suppose
it to have been. Your lawyer, Stevens, really appeared, once or twice,
to be quite annoyed at his home thrusts; while lawyer Knights, or
Rough-hewn Sam, as they call him, who, either from a sly wish to see
his friend Stevens bothered, or from a real wish to help Harry,
volunteered to whisper a few suggestions in his ear occasionally, sat
by, and laughed out of his eyes, till they ran over with tears, to see
a court lawyer so hard pushed by a country bumpkin."

"Pooh! you make too much of the fellow," said Peters, with assumed
contempt. "Why, he is a mere obstinate boor, whose self-will and
vanity led him to set up and persevere in a defence in which he knows
there is neither law nor justice."

"And yet, Mr. Peters," observed Miss Haviland, inquiringly, "the young
man must have known that he was making great expense for himself, in
obtaining delays and new trials, in the hope that the lost records
would be found. If he was not very confident those records would have
established his right, why should he have done this?"

"O, that was a mere pretence about the records altering the case,
doubtless," replied Peters, with the air of one wishing to hear no
more on the subject.

"It may have been so," rejoined the former, doubtfully; "but I should
have hardly inferred it from Mr. Jones's description of the man and
his conduct."