That Austin repented bitterly of the crime which he had committed is not to be doubted; but it was not with the subdued soul of a Christian. His pride was continually struggling within him, and was not yet conquered; this it was that made him alternately self-condemning and irascible, and it was the continual warfare in his soul which was undermining his constitution. Austin sent for medical advice for his supposed complaint. The country practitioner, who could discover nothing, pronounced it to be an affection of the heart. He was not far wrong; and Mr Austin's illness was generally promulgated. Cards and calls were the consequence, and Austin kept himself a close but impatient prisoner in his own house. His hunters remained in the stables, his dogs in the kennel, and every one intimated that Mr Austin was labouring under a disease from which he would not recover. At first this was extremely irksome to Austin, and he was very impatient; but gradually he became reconciled, and even preferred his sedentary and solitary existence. Books were his chief amusement, but nothing could minister to a mind diseased, or drive out the rooted memory of the brain. Austin became more morose and misanthropic every day, and at last would permit no one to come near him but his valet and his wife. Such was the position of his parents, when Joey was proceeding to their abode. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. OUR HERO FALLS IN WITH AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE, AND IS NOT VERY MUCH DELIGHTED. We left our hero rolling his knife-grinder's wheel towards his father's house. It must be confessed that he did it very unwillingly. He was never very fond of it at any time; but, since he had taken possession of Spikeman's property, and had received from Mary the intelligence that he was worth 350 pounds more, he had taken a positive aversion to it. It retarded his movements, and it was hard work when he had not to get his livelihood by it. More than once he thought of rolling it into a horsepond, and leaving it below low-water mark; but then he thought it a sort of protection against inquiry, and against assault, for it told of poverty and honest employment; so Joey rolled on, but not with any feelings of regard towards his companion.