They both now alighted, and led the horse towards a thick hedge, skirting a plantation, near the large house lately occupied by Lady Byron. Then Bill let down the tail-board of the cart, and laying hold of Jacob Gray by the heels, he dragged him out, and letting his head come with a hard bump against the ground, which was by no means likely to improve his faculties. They then pushed him along with their feet, till he lay completely under the hedge, and could not come to any harm from a chance vehicle or horseman. “Well,” remarked Bill, “I think we have done that job handsomely.” “Uncommon,” replied his companion; “I’d give something to see his stare when he wakes up to-morrow.” “He will look about him a bit, and then, when he finds his money gone, won’t he put up prayers for us in that blessed little old church, as is now striking two.” Hampstead church was striking two as he spoke, and the echo of the sounds came sweetly and solemnly upon the night air. Bill whistled to the horse, and, at a rapid pace, the thieves took the road homewards again. CHAPTER LX. Ada at Sir Francis Hartleton’s.—The Philosophy of a Young Heart.—A Confession.—The Pleasure of Sympathy. What pen shall describe the happiness that gleamed now in the heart of Ada as she sat with Sir Francis Hartleton’s young wife on the morning after her introduction to her, in a neat and prettily-arranged room, overlooking the park. The air was fresh and balmy—the birds were flitting past the windows, and filled the atmosphere with music. Crowds of gaily-dressed persons were idly sauntering among the trees; enlivening strains of martial music came wafted to her ears as the guard was changed at the Palace. The perfume of flowers, the kind words of Lady Hartleton, and kinder looks—the harmony of the household—the gay laughter from children who were chasing each other in a neighbouring garden, and last, though greatest of all, the consciousness of freedom from Jacob Gray, so filled the heart of Ada with delight, that she suddenly threw herself into the arms of Lady Hartleton, and with a flood of tears, said,— “Oh, I am too happy! How can I by a life’s long duration ever repay you a little of the joys you have filled my heart with?” “My dear Ada,” replied Lady Hartleton, “you must not talk so. What you are now enjoying, and for which you are so thankful, is no more, and probably much less than what you ought always to have enjoyed. ’Tis the contrast of this and what you have suffered which makes you overlook all the disadvantages and fancy that to mix with the world, and enjoy its routine of existence, must he unalloyed happiness.” “Can any of those be unhappy?” said Ada, pointing to the gay throngs in the park. “Alas! my dear,” said Lady Hartleton, “how very few of them are happy.” “Indeed, madam?”