Page:Dramas 3.pdf/469

Rh

I beg your pardon, lady: an evil report and its refutation are no fair match for one another. The first runs far a-field with the pace of a race-horse, the second follows after like a poor cudgelled donkey, and never clears a fourth part of the ground.

You must own, my dear aunt, that this makes against you. I fear you will be obliged to stand in the church porch, with a sheet about you, for defamation.

That would spread evil report the further.

The prosecutor speaks reason; that would be no compensation at all for the injury, and he will not receive it as such.

What can be done, then, Mr. Justice?

When the character of a bachelor is so injured by any woman, that he is, or may be, prevented from finding a suitable mate to solace his days, she is bound—in honour bound—to marry him herself.

A reparation, I believe, which they are