Well,--we must get on. Day after day, for several months before the date we have got to, a sort of mystery seemed to grow deeper and deeper on the benevolent features of the father of Louise. Something--nobody could tell what--had lifted him out of his ordinary self. He dropt dark hints of some great change that was shortly to take place in the position of the family: he even took many opportunities of lecturing Cecil Hope on the miseries of ill-assorted marriages, particularly where the lady was of a family immeasurably superior to the man's. Miss Smith thought he was going to be made Lord Mayor; Cecil Hope supposed he was about to be appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Louise thought he was growing silly, and took no notice of all the airs he put on, and the depreciatory observations he made on the rank of a country squire. As to Mr Cocker, he was already fully persuaded that his master was the greatest man in the world, and, if he had started for king, would have voted him to the throne without a moment's hesitation. At last the origin of all these proceedings on the part of Mr Bullion began to be suspected. A little dark man, with the brightest possible eyes, shrouded in a great cloak, with a broad-brimmed hat carefully drawn over his brows, and just showing to the affrighted maid who opened the door the aforesaid eyes, fixed on her with such an expression of inquiry that they fully supplied the difficulty he experienced in asking for Mr Bullion in words,--for he was a foreigner, not much gifted with the graces of English pronunciation. This little dark and inquisitive man came to the house two or three times a-week, and spent several hours in close consultation with Mr Bullion. On emerging from these councils, it was easy to see, by that gentleman's countenance, whether the affair, whatever it was, was in a prosperous condition or not. Sometimes he came into the supper-room gloomy and silent, sometimes tripping in like a sexagenarian Taglioni, and humming a French song,--for his knowledge of that language was extraordinary,--and his whole idea of a daughter's education seemed to be, to make her acquire the true Parisian accent, and to read Molière and Corneille. So Louise, to gratify the whim of her father, had made herself perfect in the language, and could have entered into a correspondence with Madame de Sevigné without a single false concord, or a mistake in spelling. Who could this little man be, who had such influence on her father's spirits? They watched him, but could see nothing but the dark cloak and slouched hat, which disappeared down some side street, and would have puzzled one of the detective police to keep them in view. Her thoughts rested almost constantly on this subject. Even at church--for they were regular church-goers, and very decided Protestants, as far as their religious feelings could be shown in hating the devil and the Pope--she used to watch her