And then he would con over his chances again, and think which was most likely to give him a month or two. Old Dyle--'Bah! he's a stone, he would not give me an hour. Or Carny, curse him, unless Lucas would move him. And, no, Lucas is a rogue, selfish beast: he owes me his place; and I don't think he'd stir his finger to snatch me from perdition. Or Nutter--Nutter, indeed!--why that fiend has been waiting half the year round to put in his distress the first hour he can.' And then Sturk writhed round on his back, as we may suppose might St. Anthony on his gridiron, and rolled his eye-balls up toward the dark bed; and uttered a dismal groan, and thought of the three inexorable fates, Carny, Nutter, and Dyle, who at that moment held among them the measure, and the thread, and the shears of his destiny: and standing desperately in the dark at the verge of the abyss, he mentally hurled the three ugly spirits together into his bag, and flung them whirling through the mirk into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. CHAPTER XXXIX. TELLING HOW LILIAS WALSINGHAM FOUND TWO LADIES AWAITING HER ARRIVAL AT THE ELMS. When Lilias Walsingham, being set down in the hall at the Elms, got out and threw back her hood, she saw two females sitting there, who rose, as she emerged, and bobbed a courtesy each. The elder was a slight thin woman of fifty or upwards, dark of feature, but with large eyes, the relics of early beauty. The other a youthful figure, an inch or two taller, slim and round, and showing only a pair of eyes, large and dark as the others, looking from under her red hood, earnestly and sadly as it seemed, upon Miss Walsingham. 'Good-evening, good neighbours,' said Miss Lily in her friendly way; 'the master is in town, and won't return till to-morrow; but may be you wish to speak to me?' ''Tis no place for the like of yous,' said old John Tracy, gruffly, for he knew them, with the privilege of an old servant. 'If you want to see his raverence, you must come in the morning.' 'But it may be something, John, that can't wait, and that I can do,' said Lily. 'And, true for you, so it is, my lady,' said the elder woman, with another bob; 'an' I won't delay you, Ma'am, five minutes, if you plaze, an' it's the likes of you,' she said, in a shrewish aside, with a flash of her large eyes upon John Tracy, 'that stands betune them that's willin' to be good and the poor--so yez do, saucepans and bone-polishers, bad luck to yez.' The younger woman plucked the elder by the skirt; but Lily did not hear. She was already in the parlour. 'Ay, there it is,' grinned old John, with a wag of his head. And so old Sally came forth and asked the women to step in, and set chairs for them, while Lily was taking off her gloves and hood by the table. 'You'll tell me first who you are,' said Lily, 'my good woman--for I don't think we've met before--and then you will say what I can do for you.'