laudable eagerness to administer early intelligence, he should now and then run away with an ill-understood tale only heard by halves. Thus it often happens, that those newspapers which are proud of their early intelligence, are occasionally exposed to the temptation of inserting that which needs contradiction. When Philip Martindale had thus fairly committed himself as an inquirer, he went into the subject very fully; and from all that he could learn from Mr. Denver, there did not appear to be any very powerful evidence of the existence of any claimant of the Martindale property; but it was at the same time very clear that Mr. John Martindale was gone to London, and that these three people had gone with him, and that they had all gone in his own carriage. Now it was not likely that the old gentleman should carry the oddity of his humor so far as to accommodate a claimant of his property with the use of his own carriage. There was a mystery in all this not to be solved. Philip’s inquiries were fruitless, therefore, at Mr. Denver’s; and all that he had ascertained was, that nobody knew what was the cause of the extraordinary movements of his extraordinary relative. CHAPTER XV. “Such is the weakness of all mortal hope, So fickle is the state of earthly things, That ere they come into their aimed scope, They fall so short of our fraile reckonings, And bring us bale and bitter sorrowings.” SPENSER. When any extraordinary event occurs in which one is deeply interested, the person concerned need not take much pains in his endeavours to find it out--it will soon reveal itself. So did it happen to Philip Martindale. But the information did not come upon him all at once--it was gradually developed like the catastrophe of a well-told tale.