"Why, my dear creature," said Miss Ferret, as she addressed Miss Robinson, "you have been horribly unlucky. I protest you have nothing for it left but selling out of the funds to pay off your debts, and though all _you_ Change-alley people have been turned to _coiners_ by the late rise of stock, it will not do to lift one's capital." The table broke up; Mr. Gresham rubbed his hands self complacently, and moving briskly towards a window, said, "Somebody mentioned a star just now, which reminds me to look for some friendly ray to guide me home." Mr. Hartland, who was equally interested in the light of the firmament, followed slowly, and was the first to exclaim, "How dark it is!" "_It is indeed_," answered Miss Ferret. "Look out, Sir Roger, it is black as soot. I think you will have to answer to Mrs. Gresham for her husband's life if you let him go home to-night." Sir Roger was in the highest state of good humour, and seizing directly on the hospitable hint, declared that neither of his guests should "stir a foot." Lady Goodman, ever ready to second a kind feeling, praised the merits of a well-aired bed to each of the gentlemen. Miss Ferret knew that Mr. Gresham would refuse to stay, which he did, alleging that Mrs. Gresham would be uneasy were he not to return, and she wished, as well as thought, that Mr. Hartland would remain if invited; in which speculation, accordingly, she was also right, and seeing him hesitate, she ran towards the bell, saying, "I assure you it would be folly to attempt riding home; there is no necessity at least for Mr. Hartland to break his neck." "No," said Sir Roger, laughing heartily; "though Hartland lives at Henbury, there is no _henpecker_ there yet." This sally was met by Miss Ferret with "Excellent, upon my honour! Lady Goodman, is'nt that the best thing you ever heard? Well," added our voluble _go-between_, "I thought that this would be the end of it, when you gentlemen wedged yourselves into that far window before dinner, and prosed about new moons, full moons, and harvest moons, till you wearied the moon to sleep, and now you are left without any lamp in the sky." To be brief, Mr. Hartland was easily prevailed upon. Mr. Gresham took his departure, and the circle at Colbrook, after partaking of a comfortable old fashioned supper, retired to their apartments. If all secrets must be discovered when we set about telling a story, we must reveal the fact that two of the party passed a restless night. How it happened may be thus accounted for. Whatever may be thought, and however unnatural it may seem, that a man of forty-two should be visited by those agitations which the young imagine to belong exclusively to their fresh sensibilities, and the hacknied do not believe in at all, it will not appear incredible to those who are accustomed to look into the human heart with a philosophic eye, if we assert that Mr. Hartland's spirits were thrown into considerable flutter by the events of the past day.