The long hand of the official clock moved on as slow and unconcerned as a government clerk; but in the eyes of the anxious Mrs. Sandboys it seemed to be spinning round like the index to a pieman’s gaming-dial; Time, to her, appeared to have parted with his scythe for a reaping machine, and to be mowing down the minutes as if they were incipient bristles on a chin undergoing “a clean shave for a halfpenny.” It wanted but a short time to the appointed hour for the arrival of the dreaded van; and Mrs. Sandboys, with the weeping Elcy at her side, sat trembling in her Adelaides, and experiencing at each fresh opening of the door the same breathless and “sinking” sensation as is peculiar to steamboats on pitching deep down into the trough of the sea. To her ineffable relief, however, the red-faced Jobby at length darted into the office, carrying the reply from Parthenon House in his hand. The boy was unable to speak for the speed he had made (for he believed the letter he bore would be sufficient to gain his father’s liberty), and stood panting—now wiping his forehead, and now, to cool himself, tearing open the collar of his shirt. His mother, in her anxiety, had not sufficient patience to wait till the boy had breath to tell the issue of his journey, but snatching the letter from his hand, tore it eagerly open. She had, however, no sooner run her eyes over its contents, than she uttered a faint cry, and fell back against the wall. Jobby and Elcy were instantly at their mother’s side, endeavouring to comfort her, and seeking to know what fresh catastrophe had befallen them; and when Jobby learnt that Mrs. Wewitz had declined vouching for the respectability of his father, the effect of the news upon the lad, who had made certain that all was right, was almost painful to contemplate. For a moment, he turned pale as marble, and stood as if half incredulous of what he heard; then the blood crimsoned his face, and the tears filled his eyes, as he fell on his mother’s neck, and sobbed like a child with her. Elcy, however, seemed to gain new courage from their combined distress, and as she loosened the strings of her mother’s bonnet, and entreated Jobby, in a whisper, to remember where he was, telling him all the people were looking at him, she suddenly recollected Mrs. Fokesell, who she felt sure would willingly come and speak for her father. As the thought flashed across her mind, she turned hastily to the clock, and then, bending over her mother, told her in a low voice to be of good heart, for she still saw a way of obtaining her father’s liberation. Mrs. Sandboys no sooner caught the words, and learnt from Elcy the course she meant to pursue, than she became as confident as the girl of success, and bidding her take a cab, she told her that there might be yet time, if she departed with all possible speed.