"You are, I think, the sister of the prisoner?"
"Yes, sir."
"Not the full sister, however?"
"No, sir—we are by different mothers."
"True; and you are, I think, several years older than your sister?"
"Yes, sir," etc.
After the advocate had conceived that, by these preliminary and unimportant questions, he had familiarised the witness with the situation in which she stood, he asked, "whether she had not remarked her sister's state of health to be altered, during the latter part of the term when she had lived with Mrs. Saddletree?"
Jeanie answered in the affirmative.
"And she told you the cause of it, my dear, I suppose?" said Fairbrother, in an easy, and, as one may say, an inductive sort of tone.
"I am sorry to interrupt my brother," said the Crown Counsel, rising; "but I am in your Lordships' judgment, whether this be not a leading question?"