that might
move your worst enemies (and I, my lord, was never of the number) to tears and
to sympathy. But permit me to ask what you now mean to do, and why you have
honoured me, whose opinion can be of little consequence, with your confidence on
this occasion?«
    »Mr. Oldbuck,« answered the Earl, »as I could never have foreseen the nature
of that confession which I have heard this day, I need not say that I had no
formed plan of consulting you, or any one, upon affairs the tendency of which I
could not even have suspected. But I am without friends, unused to business,
and, by long retirement, unacquainted alike with the laws of the land and the
habits of the living generation; and when, most unexpectedly, I find myself
immersed in the matters of which I know least, I catch, like a drowning man, at
the first support that offers. You are that support, Mr. Oldbuck. I have always
heard you mentioned as a man of wisdom and intelligence - I have known you
myself as a man of a resolute and independent spirit; - and there is one
circumstance,« said he, »which ought to combine us in some degree - our having
paid tribute to the same excellence of character in poor Eveline. You offered
yourself to me in my need, and you were already acquainted with the beginning of
my misfortunes. To you, therefore, I have recourse for advice, for sympathy, for
support.«
    »You shall seek none of them in vain, my lord,« said Oldbuck, »so far as my
slender ability extends; - and I am honoured by the preference, whether it
arises from choice, or is prompted by chance. But this is a matter to be ripely
considered. May I ask what are your principal views at present?«
    »To ascertain the fate of my child,« said the Earl, »be the consequences
what they may, and to do justice to the honour of Eveline, which I have only
permitted to be suspected to avoid discovery of the yet more horrible taint to
which I was made to believe it liable.«
    »And the memory of your mother?«
    »Must bear its own burden,« answered the Earl with a sigh: »better that she
were justly convicted of deceit, should that be found necessary, than that
others should be unjustly accused of crimes so much more dreadful.«
    »Then, my lord,« said Oldbuck, »our first business must be to put