Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/324

 wish to speak against her to you, especially now that you have become the wife of her brother-in-law, over whose household and children she ruled for so many years before you were chosen to reign as queen over the fortunate kingdom. But I know at one time, whether or no you may now have changed your mind in her regard, we agreed pretty nearly in our opinion of that (more or less) young lady. And in any case you'll admit that at best she is inclined to be quixotic and dramatic in her views of morality and conduct generally.

They say "two heads are better than one." Personally I think that would depend on the heads. If Hereward and Miss Ricardo put theirs together over this statement of his, it's not much to the credit of the conjunction that they didn't see certain points of objection, unassisted by the lawyers. I should have put my finger on them at once, if they had asked my advice.

You see, where Ian Barr is concerned, the statement could do him little, if any good, in a court of law. Bringing out the fact that he was in the View Tower at the time of Lady Hereward's death, indeed, was likely to tell against him. To be sure, there was the girl Nora Verney to swear that she was with him, and that they were together in an upper room when they heard the shots. But as she had perjured herself the first day of the inquest, her evidence wasn't much