“I often think,” said Davis, as he took out his cigar-case and proceeded to choose a cigar,--“I often think it would be a fine sight when the swells--the fashionable world, as the newspapers call them--would be pressing on to the Old Bailey to see one of their own set in the dock. What nobs there would be on the Bench! All Brookes's and the Wyndham scattered amongst the bar. The 'Illustrated News' would have a photographic picture of you, and the descriptive fellows would come out strong about the way you recognized your former acquaintances in court. Egad! old Grog Davis would be quite proud to give his evidence in such company!' How long have you been acquainted with the prisoner in the dock, Mr. Davis?' cried he, aloud, imitating the full and imperious accents of an examining counsel. 'I have known him upwards of fifteen years, my Lord. We went down together to Leeds in the summer of 1840 on a little speculation with cogged dice--'” Beecher looked up and tried to speak, but his strength failed him, and his head fell heavily down again on the table. “There, 'liquor up,' as the Yankees say,” cried Davis, passing the decanter towards him. “You 're a poor chicken-hearted creature, and don't do much honor to your 'order.'” “You 'll drive me to despair yet,” muttered Beecher, in a voice scarcely above a whisper. “Not a bit of it, man; there's pluck in despair! You 'll never go that far!” Beecher grasped his glass convulsively; and as his eyes flashed wildly, he seemed for a moment as if about to hurl it in the other's face. Davis's look, however, appeared to abash him, and with a low, faint sigh he relinquished his hold, while his head fell forward on his bosom. Davis now drew near the fire, and with a leg on either side of it, smoked away at his ease. CHAPTER XXVII. A VISIT OF CONDOLENCE “I think she will _see_ me,” said Davenport Dunn, to the old woman servant who opened the door to him at the Kelletts' cottage, “if you will tell her my name: Mr. Dunn,--Mr. Davenport Dunn.” “She told me she 'd not see anybody, sir,” was the obdurate reply. “Yes; but I think when you say who it is--” “She would not see that young man that was in the regiment with her brother, and he was here every day, wet or dry, to ask after her.” “Well, take in my card now, and I 'll answer for it she'll not refuse me.” The old woman took the card half sulkily from his hand, and returned in a few minutes to say that Miss Kellett would receive him. Dressed in mourning of the very humblest and cheapest kind, and with all the signs of recent suffering and sorrow about her, Sybella Kellett yet received Mr. Dunn with a calm and quiet composure for which he was scarcely prepared. “If I have been importunate, Miss Kellett,” said he, “it is because I desire to proffer my services to you. I feel assured that you will not take ill this assistance on my part I would wish to be thought a friend--”