Since the retirement of the elder partner, and during the absence of the younger, the entire management of the business had devolved upon Mr. Hazeldine, the chief cashier, and no one more capable of sustaining the burthen could have been found. He had been with the firm since boyhood, and in process of time had risen from one grade to another till it was impossible for him to rise any higher, unless he were made a partner; a contingency which had been discussed more than once between the two Mr. Avisons. Although of obscure origin, Mr. Hazeldine, early in life, had married a young lady of some standing in Ashdown society, who brought with her a fortune of three thousand pounds, and had thereby at once raised himself considerably in the social scale. Two sons and one daughter had been born of the marriage, all of whom were now grown up. Edward, the elder son, was in business as a brewer at Beecham, which might almost be called a suburb of Ashdown, although it was in another parish. He was a keen, hard-headed business man, eager to push his way in the world, and ambitious after a fashion which no one but himself was aware of. The younger son, Clement, was in practice as a surgeon. After gaining experience for three or four years as assistant to a popular London doctor, his father had bought for him what remained of the practice of old Doctor Diprose. Clement had thereupon removed his quarters to Ashdown, and was at present fighting the uphill fight of a young doctor in a small provincial town. Fanny, Mr. Hazeldine's daughter, was unmarried, and lived at home with her parents. It was customary at Avison's Bank for Mr. Hazeldine, or his chief clerk, John Brancker (generally the latter) to go up to London by train every Thursday and there change a thousand or twelve hundred pounds' worth of notes for gold, in order to meet the requirements of the bank's numerous small customers on market-day. On this particular Thursday on which we make his acquaintance, Mr. Hazeldine himself was on his way to London to change the usual amount of notes for gold. In the netting of the carriage overhead was the black bag, now empty, in which he would bring the money back. As he sits there in the train with folded arms and shut eyes, to all appearance asleep, but in reality as wideawake as ever he had been in his life, and with his mind pondering a thousand questions, let us endeavor, with a few touches, to bring him more definitely before the reader.