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it now, and where is he?” asked the attorney, triumphantly.

      “At rest, I hope,” murmured the sad man.

      “Not a bit of it, sir,” said the wheezing voice, in a tone of confidence; “take my word for it, he ‘s alive and hearty, somewhere or other, ay, and we ‘ll hear of him one of these days: he ‘ll be smelting metals in Africa, or cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Heaven knows what, or prime minister of one of those rajahs in India. He’s a clever dog, and he knows it too. I saw what he thought of himself the day old Sir Elkanah came down to Fairbridge.”

      “To be sure, you were there that morning,” said the attorney; “tell us about that meeting.”

      “It’s soon told,” resumed the other. “When Sir Elkanah Crofton arrived at the house, we were all in the garden. Sir Samuel had taken me there to see some tulips, which he said were the finest in Europe, except some at the Hague. Maybe it was that the old baronet was vexed at seeing nobody come to meet him, or that something else had crossed him, but as he entered the garden I saw he was sorely out of temper.

      “‘How d’ye do, Sir Elkanah?’ said Whalley to him, coming up pleasantly. 'We scarcely expected you before dinner-time. My wife and my daughters,’ said he, introducing them; but the other only removed his hat ceremoniously, without ever noticing them in the least.

      “‘I hope you had a pleasant journey, Sir Elkanah?’ said Whalley, after a pause, while, with a short jerk of his head, he made signs to the ladies to leave them.

      “‘I trust I am not the means of breaking up a family party?’ said the other, half sarcastically. ‘Is Mrs. Whalley – ’

      “‘Lady Whalley, with your good permission, sir,’ said Samuel, stiffly.

      “‘Of course; how stupid of me! I should remember you had been knighted. And, indeed, the thought was full upon me as I came along, for I scarcely suppose that if higher ambitions had not possessed you, I should find the farm buildings and the outhouse in the state of ruin I see them.’

      “‘They are better by ten thousand pounds than the day on which I first saw them; and I say it in the presence of this honest townsman here, my neighbor,’ – meaning me, – ‘that both you and they were very creaky concerns when I took you in hand.’

      “I thought the old Baronet was going to have a fit at these words, and he caught hold of my arm and swayed backwards and forwards all the time, his face purple with passion.

      “‘Who made you, sir? who made you?’ cried he, at last, with a voice trembling with rage.

      “‘The same hand that made ns all,’ said the other, calmly. ‘The same wise Providence that, for his own ends, creates drones as well as bees, and makes rickety old baronets as well as men of brains and industry.’

      “‘You shall rue this insolence; it shall cost you dearly, by Heaven!’ cried out the old man, as he gripped me tighter. ‘You are a witness, sir, to the way I have been insulted. I ‘ll foreclose your mortgage – I ‘ll call in every shilling I have advanced – I ‘ll sell the house over your head – ’

      “‘Ay! but the head without a roof over it will hold itself higher than your own, old man. The good faculties and good health God has given me are worth all your title-deeds twice told. If I walk out of this town as poor as the day I came into it, I ‘ll go with the calm certainty that I can earn my bread, – a process that would be very difficult for you when you could not lend out money on interest.’

      “‘Give me your arm, sir, back to the town,’ said the old Baronet to me; I feel myself too ill to go all alone.’

      “‘Get him to step into the house and take something,’ whispered Whalley in my ear, as he turned away and left us. But I was afraid to propose it; indeed, if I had, I believe the old man would have had a fit on the spot, for he trembled from head to foot, and drew long sighs, as if recovering out of a faint.

      “‘Is there an inn near this,’ asked he, where I can stop? and have you a doctor here?’

      “‘You can have both, Sir Elkanah,’ said I.

      “‘You know me, then? – you know who I am?’ said he, hastily, as I called him by his name.

      “‘That I do, sir, and I hold my place under you; my name is Shore.’

      “‘Yes, I remember,’ said he, vaguely, as he moved away. When we came to the gate on the road he turned around full and looked at the house, overgrown with that rich red creeper that was so much admired. ‘Mark my words, my good man,’ said he, – mark them well, and as sure as I live, I ‘ll not leave one stone on another of that dwelling there.’”

      “He was promising more than he could perform,” said the attorney.

      “I don’t know that,” sighed the meek man; “there’s very little that money can’t do in this life.”

      “And what has become of Whalley’s widow, – if she be a widow?” asked one.

      “She’s in a poor way. She’s up at the village yonder, and, with the help of one of her girls, she’s trying to keep a children’s school.”

      “Lady Whalley’s school?’” exclaimed one, in half sarcasm.

      “Yes; but she has taken her maiden name again since this disaster, and calls herself Mrs. Herbert.”

      “Has she more than one daughter, sir?” I asked of the last speaker.

      “Yes, there are two girls; the younger one, they tell me, is going, or gone abroad, to take some situation or other, – a teacher, or a governess.”

      “No, sir,” said the pluffy man, “Miss Kate has gone as companion to an old widow lady at Brussels, – Mrs. Keats. I saw the letter that arranged the terms, – a trifle less per annum than her mother gave to her maid.”

      “Poor girl!” sighed the sad man. “It ‘s a dreary way to begin life!”

      I nodded assentingly to him, and with a smile of gratitude for his sympathy. Indeed, the sentiment had linked me to him, and made me wish to be beside him. The conversation now grew discursive, on the score of all the difficulties that beset women when reduced to make efforts for their own support; and though the speakers were men well able to understand and pronounce upon the knotty problem, the subject did not possess interest enough to turn my mind from the details I had just been hearing. The name of Miss Herbert on the trunks showed me now who was the young lady I had met, and I reproached myself bitterly with having separated from her, and thus forfeited the occasion of befriending her on her journey. We were to sup somewhere about eleven, and I resolved that I would do my utmost to discover her, if in the train; and I occupied myself now with imagining numerous pretexts for presuming to offer my services on her behalf. She will readily comprehend the disinterested character of my attentions. She will see that I come in no spirit of levity, but moved by a true sympathy and the respectful sentiment of one touched by her sorrows. I can fancy her coy diffidence giving way before the deferential homage of my manner; and in this I really believe I have some tact. I was not sorry to pursue this theme undisturbed by the presence of my fellow-travellers, who had now got out at a station, leaving me all alone to meditate and devise imaginary conversations with Miss Herbert. I rehearsed to myself the words by which to address her, my bow, my gesture, my faint smile, a blending of melancholy with kindliness, my whole air a union of the deference of the stranger with something almost fraternal. These pleasant musings were now rudely routed by the return of my fellow-travellers, who came hurrying back to their places at the banging summons of a great bell.

      “Everything cold, as usual. It is a perfect disgrace how the public are treated on this line!” cried one.

      “I never think of anything but a biscuit and a glass of ale, and they charged me elevenpence halfpenny for that.”

      “The directors ought to look to this. I saw those ham-sandwiches when I came down here last Tuesday week.”

      “And though the time-table gives us fifteen minutes, I can swear, for I laid

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