"I will forgive you at once," rejoined his friend, "if you will only tell me, in return, how you made the discovery."

"In the simplest manner. I was at Dovetail, the conveyancer's, this morning, on business of my own; which he could not attend to, because he was poring over the title-deeds of Lynchcombe, on which he said he had an opinion to give by Thursday next. Knowing that the property had been in the Latimer family ever since the Lord Harry filched it from the church, I felt somewhat curious concerning the intended purchaser."

"But my solicitors expressly conditioned that my name should not be mentioned ?"

"Nor was it. It was that betrayed you. He told me he was not at liberty to disclose the name of his client; a gentleman who, having recently inherited an enormous fortune, imagined that the price would be raised upon him if his name were quoted in the market."

"Well?"-demanded Sir John, a little impa

tiently.

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Very little more!" added Roger Farmer, with a knowing smile. Wraysbury, for a

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thousand!' I exclaimed, when he had made this explanation. And I saw, by the biting of Dovetail's lips, that I had hit the bull'seye."

"I have not often been accused of over-prudence," said Sir John, not a little nettled.

Nobody accuses any body of any thing, nowa-days, unless by a letter to the newspaper under a false signature," returned Farmer, gaily. "But I have often suspected that you owe the squareness of your well-curled crop to an over-development of the organs of caution,-a fault on the right side, my dear John. Because, with the utmost of our care, the best-kept secret usually becomes public at a month's end! Even the mysteries of the cabinet ooze out,—even secret committees find an echo."

"But the authorship of Junius, and of the

Icon Basilike, Mr. Farmer ?"-pleaded Sophy, in a gentle voice.

Roger Farmer stared. He had not suspected the habitually silent young lady of Denny Cross of caring for any other authorship than that of a washing-bill or recipe-book.

"You are a scholar, then, Miss Pennington?" said he, with almost contemptuous surprise.

Scarcely a better one than my little niece; but I have heard my Cambridge brother discuss the question.-If, however, you wish to reduce me to humbler ground, tell me who invented railways, or who murdered Eliza Grimwood ?"

"Or who exacted of Napoleon the execution of the Duc d'Enghien,—or who beheaded Charles the First," added Sir J. W. W.

Even in private families," said Lady Wraysbury, "what innumerable mysteries are maintained !"

"To go no further than my own," added her husband,—“ (as we are almost a family circle, I may venture to allude to the subject). There is

my brother in-law, Wroughton, as great a social enigma as the Man in the Iron Mask.-He has been eight years Clara's husband; and I know no more of his fortune or origin than my father did when, on the mere strength of an introduction from Gerald Molyneux, and chiefly to relieve my mother from the cares of chaperonship, he gave him his daughter."

"But to Sir Harry he must have explained his parentage?"

"He stated that he was from the north-a wide word;-and that his father and mother died when he was very young, leaving him to the care of an uncle, who was also dead. He had some property in the French funds, which, with her own fortune, he proposed to settle on Clara." "But all this is lucid enough?"—

"If his ipse dixit sufficed. But some people declare that he is an illegitimate son of the late king; others, that his real father was hung for forgery; and certain it is that, at the last moment, nothing tangible was forthcoming for in

vestment but Clara's eight thousand three hun

dred pounds."

"Yet they appear to be very well off?" observed Lady Wraysbury. "We found them in

the best apartments of the best hotel at Homburg; and I am assured that, during the winter, they give the best dinners in Frankfort."

Which is exactly what constitutes the mystery of the case. Molyneux, by whom he was introduced to Clara when she was travelling with Emma on the continent, knows no more of his history than we do.—He first met him at Baden, as we saw him the other day at Homburg, the best-dressed and best-mannered Englishman in the place;-quiet, unobtrusive, knowing every one, and an honorary member of the best club of almost every capital in Europe;-never appearing to have much money at his disposal, but never in want of it."

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Without o'erflowing, full," said Farmer, in conclusion.

"If he were a Russian," added Sir John, "we