"This closed the interview, and then Col. Belcher politely showed the 'Tattler' reporter over his palatial abode. 'Taken for all in all,' he does not expect 'to look upon its like again.' "None see it but to love it, None name it but to praise. "It was 'linked sweetness long drawn out,' and must have cost the gallant Colonel a pile of stamps. Declining an invitation to visit the stables,--for our new millionaire is a lover of horse-flesh, as well as the narcotic weed--and leaving that gentleman to 'witch the world with wondrous horsemanship,' the 'Tattler' reporter withdrew, 'pierced through with Envy's venomed darts,' and satisfied that his courtly entertainer had been 'more sinned against than sinning.'" Col. Belcher read the report with genuine pleasure, and then, turning over the leaf, read upon the editorial page the following: "COL. BELCHER ALL RIGHT.--We are satisfied that the letter from Sevenoaks, published in yesterday's 'Tattler,' in regard to our highly respected fellow-citizen, Colonel Robert Belcher, was a gross libel upon that gentleman, and intended, by the malicious writer, to injure an honorable and innocent man. It is only another instance of the ingratitude of rural communities toward their benefactors. We congratulate the redoubtable Colonel on his removal from so pestilent a neighborhood to a city where his sterling qualities will find 'ample scope and verge enough,' and where those who suffer 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' will not lay them to the charge of one who can, with truthfulness, declare 'Thou canst not say I did it.'" When Mr. Belcher concluded, he muttered to himself, "Twenty dollars!--cheap enough." He had remained at home the day before; now he could go upon 'Change with a face cleared of all suspicion. A cloud of truth had overshadowed him, but it had been dissipated by the genial sunlight of falsehood. His self-complacency was fully restored when he received a note, in the daintiest text on the daintiest paper, congratulating him on the triumphant establishment of his innocence before the New York public, and bearing as its signature a name so precious to him that he took it to his own room before destroying it and kissed it. CHAPTER XV. WHICH TELLS ABOUT MRS. DILLINGHAM'S CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION AT THE PALGRAVE MANSION.