CHAPTER II. 



THE BAEN DOOR HENS. 



For time will teach thee soon the truth, 

 There are no birds in last year's nest. 



LONGFELLOW (// is not always May}. 



with that of your legal adviser, so should 

 the selection of the old barndoor fowls, 

 in whom you are about to repose such 

 confidence, and in whose charge you are 

 about to deposit so much valuable property, be set 

 about with the greatest circumspection. At first 

 sight there may not appear to be much likeness 

 between these bipeds, both useful in their way ; but, 

 on second thoughts, they have a good deal in common. 

 In full confidence of their trustworthiness do you 

 intrust to each and either a vast amount of private 

 business, which you would find it impossible to enact 

 personally; one is a solicitor, and the other is, or 

 ought to be, solicitous as regards the welfare of the 

 delicate affairs intrusted to her charge, which, if once 

 broken up, mismanaged, or neglected, cannot for 

 some considerable time be reorganised or replaced. 

 Both do much of their work in the dark, one hatching 

 plots and the other eggs. Quills form an important 



