Then you were tattooed out of regard for the plaintiff, and not purely in the interests of justice ?" "Yes; I suppose so." "Well, Mr.Attorney," interposed the Judge, "and what if she was ?" "My object, my Lord, was to show that this young lady was not the purely impassive medium in this matter that my learned friend, Mr.Short, would lead the Court to believe.

She was acting from motive." "Most people do," said the Judge drily.

"But it does not follow that the motive was an improper one." Then the learned gentleman continued his cross-examination, directing all the ingenuity of his practised mind to trying to prove by Augusta's admissions, first, that the testator was acting under the undue influence of herself; and secondly, that when the will was executed he was _non compos mentis_.

To this end he dwelt at great length on every detail of the events between the tattooing of the will and the death of the testator on the following day, making as much as was possible out of the fact that he died in a fit of mania.

But do what he would, he could not shake her evidence upon any material point, and when at last he sat down James Short felt that his case had not received any serious blow.
Then a few more questions having been asked in cross-examination by various other counsel, James rose to re-examine, and, with the object of rebutting the presumption of the testator's mental unsoundness, made Augusta repeat all the details of the confession that the late publisher had made to her as regards his methods of trading.