:

the crown-jewels, or manufacture a million of money in forged exchequer-bills. What I've got to say is this old Sloper has gone to spend the autumn at Rotterdam with his wife and family, I know that as well as you do; and if Halliday leaves the money in your hands between this and the fifteenth, you may just as well make use of what you want as not. The Postman is safe to win-"

"But if he doesn't?"

"I tell you he must. The fellows who are backing him are men who never make mistakes; and they're not likely to be out this time. You can get twenty to one if you send your money up at once."

"I'll see all the race-horses in Christendom in the bottomless pit first!" exclaimed Mr. Dobb; "no, no, old fellow; I've got a character to lose, and I've got a wife to keep. Try some other party. There's the pious cashier at the Roxborough and Castleford bank, you know; goes to church three times every Sunday-cold dinner at one o'clock, and prayers in the evening; he's the

sort of party for a neat little forgery. I'm a reprobate, I am; and I ain't up to the embezzlement dodge."

"Oh, very well," answered Mr. Catheron; "I daresay something else will turn up. TwopennyPostman sha'n't run without my having a few pounds upon him, if there's money to be got in Castleford. Say no more about it."

"I ain't going to," replied Mr. Dobb, with an energetic disregard of grammatical rule.

The two men turned, and walked silently towards the noisy group, who had gathered round a gipsy tea-kettle, and were winding up the entertainment with what Mrs. Dobb called a comfortable cup of tea, but what, upon the part of the gentlemen, seemed to be a comfortable glass of any thing that was to be had in the way of spirituous liquor. The lieutenant accepted a glass of brandy-and-water very sulkily, and then stood above the gipsy-fire smoking moodily, with the red light of the burning wood flickering on his face. Dorothy watched him sadly. He took so little notice of her. His thoughts seemed so far away

VOL. III.

3

from her. love was!

Oh, dear, what a painful passion this

Oh, dear, what a

The Dobbites took their places in the omnibus by and by, with a great deal less ceremony and a great deal more skirmishing than had attended that operation in the morning. Some of the gentlemen were wildly gay, while others seemed possessed by a morbid melancholy. Some were

slightly inclined to be captious, and others gave unmistakable evidence of a quarrelsome tendency. Some of the ladies were ill, and some were noisy. Mrs. Smith complained of the veal-pie lying heavy on her chest; and Mrs. Spinner insisted on riding outside, and singing a Swiss song, with a "La, ou, a," that was like the premonitory symptoms of seasickness, and was openly slapped by the scandalised Spinner. Dorothy rode outside, with Gervoise Catheron's sheltering arm surrounding her plump shoulders, and keeping off the cold; and, oh, all the disappointment of the day was amply recompensed by that delicious drive through the cool night-air, with a million golden stars above, and a beautiful shadowy landscape flitting by like

a dream below. What did it matter that Mr. and Mrs. Spinner were quarrelling all the time? What did it matter that the vehicle had to be stopped more than once to obtain drams with a view to the settlement of that veal-pie on Mrs. Smith's chest, or that Henry Adolphus made the night hideous with comic songs? What did it matter that the party baited at roadside inns where rough men and boys came out to stare at them, as if they had been a show; or that they went whooping through drowsy little villages, where the lights were twinkling dimly in bedroom-windows, and where scared villagers peered from their casements as at a troop of noisy demons? What did any thing matter? Her lover was by her side; and life was beautiful.

Gervoise Catheron parted sulkily from his friend the brewer's-clerk, declining to enter that gentleman's hospitable mansion, although Dorothy begged him to do so; for she was to sleep in her cousin's spare room, and had looked forward to the delight of an evening which would not be broken by her early departure. He left the party

immediately after assisting Dorothy to alight, and went back to his quarters alone. But he saw Mr. Dobb in Castleford the next day, and again the day after that; and he had a long talk with him in his office on the following day; and by that night's post money - orders for a considerable amount went up to Mr. Catheron's friend in London, to be hazarded on the fortunes of TwopennyPostman, half in the name of the lieutenant, half in the name of the clerk.

And in the bosom of his family that night Mr. Dobb was dull and gloomy, while his faint attempts at the facetious had a ghastly air that struck terror to the tender heart of his devoted partner.