"No, sir," he replied, "it's as true as you are a standin' there. We've no call to tell a lie about the matter, sir," and he drew himself up with native dignity. "And you have really heard it for a fact, Shuffler?" "I 'ave so, sir; and I could tell you, too, the party as he is agoin' to join!" "Can you?" I asked. "Who _is_ the favoured she?" "Well, sir," said he with a sly wink, screwing up his mouth tightly as if wild horses would not tear the information from him against his will, "that would be tellin'?" "I know it would," said I, "but as you have already told me so much, I think you might now let me know the lady's name." "Mr Lorton," he answered, "you know I would do anything for you I honestly could, for you 'ave been a friend to me many a time, specially when I got into that row with the tax collector, when you be'aved 'andsome. But to speak to the rights of the matter, I can't say I _know_ the lady's name wot the parsun is agoin' to marry: I only has my suspicions like." "Well, and whom do you think to be the one?" said I. "She don't live far from here!" he said in a stage whisper, dropping his voice, and looking round cautiously, as he pointed along the row of houses composing "the Terrace," where our most fashionable parishioners resided--our Belgravia, so to speak. "You don't mean one of the Miss Dashers?" I said, thinking of Bessie. "Lord, no!" he replied, "it ain't one of `my lady's' young ladies!" "Then who is it?" I said, getting quite impatient at his tergiversation. "Oh! she comed here later than them!" he answered, still beating about the bush; "she comed here later than them," he repeated, nodding his head knowingly. A sudden fear shot through me. "Is it?--no, it cannot be--is it Miss Clyde?" I asked. "Ah!" he grunted, oracularly. "You knows best about that, sir!" "Well, don't you dare, Shuffler," I savagely retorted, "to couple that lady's name with Mr Mawley's!" I was literally boiling over with fury at the very suspicion:--it was the realisation of my worst fears! "You've no cause to get angry, Mr Lorton," said he. "I didn't name no names, sir; tho' you might be further out, as far as that goes! I didn't know as you was interested in the lady, or I shouldn't 'a mentioned it." "You're quite wrong--quite wrong altogether, Shuffler. Why, the thing's absurd!" I said. "Well, you know you axed me, sir; and what could I say?" he said apologetically. "That may be," I said, less hotly. "But you had better not couple people's names together in that way. Why, it's actionable!" I added, knowing the house-agent's mortal dread of anything connected with the law. "But you won't spread it no further, Mr Lorton?" he said, anxiously, the sound eye looking at me with a beseeching expression. "_I_ won't, Shuffler," I answered; "take care that _you_ don't!" "I'll take my davy, sir, as how it shan't cross my lips again," he replied in a convincing tone.