journey at least another week; but the distracted Letitia was inconsolable. In all the anxious, restless affection of a wife for a husband, under such fearful circumstances, she urged her father, without further delay, to depart; bidding him to be the bearer of her love, and to assure the incarcerated James that every one at Elleringay sympathized with him in his cruelly wronged position.

"Really, my darling 'Tishy, I scarcely dare leave you. My child, you look so deathly pale-so very ill, that I loathe to even contemplate the journey."

"Go-go, I implore you-I beseech you go, aye, and quickly. If I am unwell, I have luxuries, comforts, and kind attendants, whilst he, my husband, is in that ignominious, that horrid place!" She buried her face in her hands, and wept bitterly.

"Promise me, then, that during my absence, you will sum up within you some degree of womanly fortitude; that you will not fret; that you will take more support; that-that-" Gideon wept too.

"Tell him how convinced every one is of his innocence."

"Yes, yes, it is a mistake; I am sure it is, 'Tishy-and-and if I know anything about such matters, he will be victoriously acquitted!"

"My dearest father, as you love me, lose no time; and oh !-write-write the moment you have seen him."

"I will! I will!"

The squire proceeded to London by the up-going mail. Immediately after his arrival he stepped into a hackney coach and drove at once to the warehouses of his quondam client, and present friend, our old acquaintance, Mr. Abel Greenham. That gentleman's business establishment was by no means one of insignificant character. When you entered you beheld compartment after compartment stretching out in distant perspective, and each filled to overflowing with choice specimens of dry saltery, in all the variety of these articles of commerce. Chambers above, cellars below were crammed with piled up hills of alimentary stores, and the eye was astonished when it gazed upon tiers and pyramidal heaps of Wiltshire flitches,

genuine Yorks, and smoke-dried Westphalians when it saw a legion of heavy firkins plenished in the dairies of Ulster or at the more remote farm-houses of Schleswig-Holstein; and those upheavals of dried tongues, smooth bladders of lard, cheeses from Cheshire and Gloucester, and Stilton and Holland, in veritable multitudes; and then those ponderous scales, huge cranes, and busy porters, with divers other business and mercantile associations to fill up the picture of a London warehouse! And it was a business, Abel's was, the first of its specific nature in the great metropolis. It had been established more than half a century, and one of its former proprietors had been an alderman, and it was actually thought the present would positively become the civic king. A bet had been made (and won too) that you could not pass this warehouse-door on any day during the week from 10 a. m., to 3 p. m., without a cart or waggon being there drawn up for the purpose of bringing or taking away the particular class of goods there vended.*

*Fact.

Abel Greenham knew all this, and he was conscious of more--to wit, that he had never dishonoured a bill nor had an altercation with any with whom he dealt since he presided over the destinies of that renowned establishment.

But obliging reader, just cast your glance upon that three windowed little box, and if you look observantly, you may, even through those dirty gauze blinds, which are so embrowned, and shabby, and tender, that they could not possibly be subjected to the process of ablution without the inevitable destruction of their integrity; you may observe, though in ill defined outline, two or three personages within. There are two thin, sallow looking little men, who indisputably have no relish for dry-saltery provisions, and how zealously they are making out invoices and looking over bills of laden. There, too, is an individual, who, if he could be put into those scales in the warehouse would weigh down three of the lardacious-visaged scribes by his side. Yes, it is Abel himself, worthy man, with his immense carcase and benign counten

ance. How intently he is counting over the soiled pages of that dog-eared day book, and with what earnestness he ever and anon tears asunder the leaves of that fat side of a ledger, and then how he runs up the long rows of figures, and makes hieroglyphics with that long pen, which he has at this moment taken from its resting place behind his ear-and all this is done with an alacrity utterly inconsistent with his ponderous person. The door opens, and though his pen has begun to ascend the shilling line, he desists to see who comes.

"Ah, squire that you? What all the way from Elleringay to-day! Bless me! Glad to see you, very glad to see you! Busy as usual, you perceive, never can retire and turn country gentleman like my very good and old respected friend, Mr. Clynchiere. Yes, glad I am indeed to see you. And how are Mr. and Mrs. Inglis-they come to town with you?"

Thus did Abel in all that volubility of expression, according to his wont when in a good humour (as he generally was), deliver