would be much more in his power. The bill must be had somehow, by fair means or foul; and if she resisted--well, there would not be very much trouble in stealing or forcing it from her. As the reflections passed through his mind the carriage in which he sat reached the top of a height, whence was obtained a view of Redmoor House; its outline standing black and heavy against the sky, its lower windows blazing with light. The sight turned Mr. Effingham's thoughts into a slightly different current. "O yes! go it; that's your sort," he said to himself with a certain amount of bitterness; "fine games goin' on there, I've no doubt; the best of drink, and coves with powdered heads to wait on you; game o' billiards afterwards, or some singin' and a dance with the women in the droring-room. That's the way to keep it up; go it while you're young. But, my friend the Bart., you'd sing another toon and laugh the wrong side o' your mouth, and cut a very different kind o' caper, if you knew what was so close to you. I've heard of a cove smokin' a pipe and not knowing that what he was sittin' on was a powder-barrel; and this seems to me very much the same sort o' thing. To think that close under his nose is the dockyment that would just crop his 'air, put him into a gray soot, Cole-Barth Fields, Milbank, and Portland, and that cussed stonequarryin' which, from all I've heard, is the heart-breakin'est work. To think that he's been payin' me to get the bill, and I've been employin' Griffiths and givin' skivs to old Lyons and settin' half Doory Lane at work to hunt up the gal, and that there she was under his roof, the whole time--it's tremenjous!" And Mr. Effingham laughed aloud, and lit a fresh cigar, and pulled the rug tighter over his legs. "She's a rum 'un, she is. I wonder which of them lights is in her room. There's one a long way off the rest, up high all by itself; that's it, I shouldn't wonder. She's not fit company for the swells downstairs, I suppose. Well, perhaps not, if they knew everythin'! But what a blessin' it is people don't know everythin'! Perhaps if they did, some of 'em wouldn't be quite so fond of sittin' down with the Bart. I wonder what she's doin' just now. Packin' her traps ready for our start, I shouldn't wonder. What a game it will be! Yes, D'Ossay, my boy, this is the best days work you ever did in your life; and your poor brother Tony little thought what a power of good he was doin' you when he first let you into the secret of Mr. Mitford and his little games." And with these reflections, and constantly-renewed cigars, Mr. Effingham beguiled the tedium of his journey to the Mitford Arms.