cipal of that establishment had received a violent shock from an anonymous letter on the subject of a certain uproarious supper, at which, on the preceding evening, the sly scapegrace behind the door had assisted to the due celebration of his birth, and the greatest possible detriment to his life. Nathaniel, then, made no sign that was not liable to very conflicting interpretations; for his humour, whatever it might have for its object or cause, vented itself for full quarter of an hour in splitting a whole bundle of quills to tatters, and chewing yards of tape up into a ball too big to swallow, and almost too dry and too large to get rid of by the way through which it had entered.

There certainly was some extraordinary cause for all this absence of mind, and all these peevish displays of temper; it certainly was not a matter of regular business, for Mr. Drake's favourite method of dealing with a fractious client was by the issuing of brief epistles by the score, every one of which ought to have answered all the purposes of severity, seeing that the charge was 3s. 4d., and no abatement for quantity; nor was it very likely that his ill-humour arose in connection with the peccadilloes of his clerk, which would have called forth contempt and contempt only so long as they did not interfere with the attention due to his affairs. Yet the emotion was so changeable, so fierce, so suggestive of what he could be and do, if once fairly roused, that the prurient curiosity of the keyhole became the means of a timely vow of reform, so terrible was the sight of that frowning visage in its wrath and grief. Notwithstanding all the physical efforts on the part of the much perplexed lawyer, his mind seemed incapable of forming any comforting decision on the subject that was irritating his present peace; so he tried his old plan for the twentieth time that morning, now apparently with some slight success. He dived into his coat-tail pocket, as if he feared something would bite him therein, and convulsively extracted a very legal looking letter, only a little more crumpled and soiled than such documents usually are so long as they are in the hands of lawyers, and scrawled over both outside and inside in anything but a professional hand. This epistle he drew between his fingers, straightened on his knee, opened,

placed on his desk-stand, flattened still further, steadied with two leaded bear-paws of iron, one on each side; then perused with an expression not unfamiliar to the countenance of the profession, which seemed to say-"If there is anything in you, I'll have it out of you as soon and as clean as another." The letter which thus underwent a thorough cross-examination (as cross as cross could be) was in itself an unoffending, harmless, letter; indeed, it was substantially about as old-fashioned a piece of post-matrimonial fondness as ever crept up by capillary attraction into the very cockles of a conjugal heart. Mr. Drake was not to be called a sentimental man in a general way, and though in secret he doated on the Boothby, and in private often took an opportunity of telling her so, his general behaviour indicated a rather low appreciation of the great boon unintentionally bequeathed to him by his defunct client, so far as the personal worth of his wife was concerned. And yet he preserved this letter till it was almost illegible and terribly fringed at the edges; so that we are able to present a copy of it here, and also to see- -what for some time he could not see-how important, how urgent the crisis which was dimly foreshadowed in the postscript.

"DEAREST HONEY,

The

"I'm sure, dearest, you'll be dying to know that your darling is safe, so I cannot rest till I write to tell you that I got all safe, and myself no worse for the journey last Saturday night but two. coach was very full of a couple of Quakers, and a man on my side that chewed like a cow; we were all so hot we wished each other all outside, or taken ill, and obliged to stop on the road. But, my word! when we did pull up at the Blue Bottle,' wasn't I cramped with cold! Everybody was expecting me-at least, they said as much-all but the carriage, which came half an hour after its time; but then, as I said (for I didn't like to scold, you know), the coach was late; so we got home, and Sarah was as glad to see me as if she'd never gone away at all. The house is most splendid; not but what it looks older since I used to wonder at it, and wish-(ah! never mind now, what I wished). Everything's new, except the old furniture and pictures-I mean, the servants are new, and as civil as needs be. (Shall I have to give 'em anything when I go away? I should think so, by the looks of them.) Sarah looks-ahempale, but happy to see me. Don't ask any questions, for I sha'n't tell you if you do. Make yourself as happy as you can, and you can tell that scapegrace radical, that if he likes his politics better than his wife,

S

we know very well how to jog on without him. Mind, deary, and wrap up well, and don't shave so low down your chin; for this sultry weather, people say, is very deceitful. I've nothing more to say, except dearest love from us both, especially me: and mind you wrap up; and come and fetch me as soon as you've been fairly tired a week or two of being alone, and send Charles home.

"Your loving Wife.

“P.S.—Sarah, I find, frets a good deal about Charles never writing. She doesn't mind his staying away a bit longer, if he's getting well, and that sort of thing; but she does think it a hard case he shouldn't write for more than three weeks; though, mind you, she doesn't say so. She doesn't want him to come home just yet, because Mr. Grogram (our man of business, you know,) says there's no end of ill feeling among the squires round about, for what Charles has done against them in getting the Reform Bill passed; they've sworn to have his life. Grogram says they're not so bad as they say, but he does think it would be better for all parties if Charles would stay away a bit, till the worst's blown over; and he thinks that Sarah ought to go to Charles, rather than Charles come to her; but then, if so, say I, what's the use of my coming down here? So you see, she takes it to heart a good deal, lovey, that Charles should never send her a word all this time. You're bad enough-only written once, I declare-but you're a long way better than he is, as good cause you should be, eh ?”

And this was Mr. Nathaniel's reverie.-Confound the young tom-noddy, he's vexed with me; goodness knows why, but does he mean to play sulky with his wife; my pet Sarah, why what would the man be at? When I married I could hardly get heels down again for a twelvemonth, and then even she wasn't Sarah; what's possessed the lad to go and positively leave his wife without a word for ever so many weeks? And worse, perhaps, he may be dead; how will that sound in the papers. I'm glad I a'n't a coroner. "Found drowned,” what a shock to Sarah's feelings it would be, even though he does half deserve it; perhaps in a sewer, too, "Found drowned with his throat cut." No, that wouldn't be it anyhow. There have I been ever since breakfast; why I haven't had a mouthful, trailing up and down after him. He surely has not turned vagabond; I think I see him as he goes into one of his own villages, staring up at a board with his own name at the bottom, threatening to take himself up for begging. Well, but where is he; and if I find him can I keep my temper? I've a mind to knock him down; there's nothing

like it for bringing a ninnyhead to his senses; argument goes down sweetly then, like physic through a funnel. Why couldn't the fellow write to his bonny wife? He was drunk when I saw him last; perhaps he's gone on being drunk in some pig-hole or other-who's to know where he is? I can't go worriting about in all the slums and dens to seek him. And that greasy-faced waiter, too, didn't care a button what had become of him. I thought I'd frighten him, and told him I believed he'd had foul play, and the rascal grinned like an ape, and said, Werry likely." Good job he went off with his grin, or I'd have knocked his nose as flat as a-wafer. What's the good of looking for him; he isn't worth looking for; no man is who would leave his wife (and such a one) for weeks and weeks without a word."

66

This is a sample of the style in which the worthy man soliloquized; and it was hard to tell whether indignation or fear had worked uppermost in his mind. It was a very un

fortunate incident in his life; for, as it happened to be a very busy day, and he was still in his humours, he gave saucy and bad advice to his clients, and as for the clerical gents in the office outside, they were all in such a state of perplexity, that the best thing they could do was to leave business at a standstill, and twirl their thumbs in idle dismay. Towards evening a servant knocked timidly at his sanctum door, and told him that it was long past dinner-time, upon which, the spirit of contradiction being yet strong upon him, he said—"Then it's past my time, I don't want any," and reaching his hat down in a fit of abstraction, he thrust his hands in his pockets, and sauntered out into the street like one dreaming. Whither he went he himself could never exactly tell. He wandered on with the purposeless air of one who had no business on earth but to avoid observation by choosing dark and little frequented streets. His mind had exhausted all conjecture; he was completely at sea, and in his jaded state no wonder that he should conjure up painful fancies about the lad he had so sincerely loved, and still more, far more painful images of that sweet Sarah-as she would be when she came to know that her young husband had gone-perhaps for ever-perhaps murdered-perhaps even worse than that. He found himself

in the street where a huge theatre frowned in sullen majesty on all the gay and giddy throng who were pressing in to its gorgeous saloons. He mingled with the crowd-was borne on unresisting-Charles might be there. He had been of late a frequent visitor, and the idea struck him that he might find him. At last he stood in the centre of the pit, scanned the boxes and the circles. He was not there. He gazed as well as he could through the dense masses of the pit; but no Charles was there, and he felt that to look for him in such a crowd was only a fool's errand. The hot air stifled him, and the very spectacle of such radiant joyousness made him sick at heart. He longed to be gone, and, amidst the buffetings, hisses, laughter, and angry curses, he worked his way, tunneling, to the open street. If ever he had entertained a plan of search, he was most assuredly untrammeled with it now, for he had clean forgotten it; and so in the misty night he trudged away, forlorn and weary, and so home. Wine and waking contended which should inflict the more appalling fancies on him. He felt, after a weary and profitless search, that he was fit for nothing but guzzling-where was that acuteness and readiness of resources which men spoke of? He reproached himself for not having set about it properly, called up in each smiling glass the dismal picture of his forsaken dear one-goaded himself to new resolves—went to his pillow to recommence the vain efforts of the day, and awoke to a sense of new fears and greater helplessness every morning.

ABOUT a week after his visit to the theatre, he was trying to eat some breakfast and to read 'the paper, with about the same progress in each duty, when a note was brought to him of a very unpreposessing exterior, and so far filthy and unpleasantly odorous, that, apart from its contents, it would have effectually put a stop to the breakfast business if there had