revolutionary dabblings, which, little dangerous as they might be to society, were quite capable, in a country where authority, though good-natured, liked occasionally to make an example, to put him on the wrong side of a prison-wall? At any rate, for better or worse, by pinching and scraping, she had saved a little, and of that little, after everything was paid off, a fraction would still be left. Everything was bequeathed to Hyacinth—everything but a couple of plated candlesticks and the old ‘cheffonier’, which had been so handsome in its day; these Pinnie begged Mr Vetch to accept in recognition of services beyond all price. The furniture, everything he didn’t want for his own use, Hyacinth could sell in a lump, and with the proceeds he could wipe out old scores. The sum of money would remain to him; it amounted, in its reduced condition, to about thirty-seven pounds. In mentioning this figure Mr Vetch appeared to imply that Hyacinth would be master of a very pretty little fortune. Even to the young man himself, in spite of his recent initiations, it seemed far from contemptible; it represented sudden possibilities of still not returning to old Crookenden’s. It represented them, that is, till, presently, he remembered the various advances made him by the fiddler, and reflected that by the time these had been repaid there would hardly be twenty pounds left. That, however, was a far larger sum than he had ever had in his pocket at once. He thanked the old man for his information, and remarked—and there was no hypocrisy in the speech—that he was very sorry Pinnie had not given herself the benefit of the whole of the little fund in her lifetime. To this her executor replied that it had yielded her an interest far beyond any other investment; for he was persuaded she believed she should never live to enjoy it, and this faith was rich in pictures, visions of the effect such a windfall would produce in Hyacinth’s career. “What effect did she mean—do you mean?” Hyacinth inquired. As soon as he had spoken he felt that he knew what the old man would say (it would be a reference to Pinnie’s belief in his reunion with his ‘relations’, and the facilities that thirty-seven pounds would afford him for cutting a figure among them); and for a moment Mr Vetch looked at him as if exactly that response were on his lips. At the end of the moment, however, he replied, quite differently— “She hoped you would go abroad and see the world.” The fiddler watched his young friend; then he added, “She had a particular wish that you should go to Paris.” Hyacinth had turned pale at this suggestion, and for a moment he said nothing. “Ah, Paris!” he murmured, at last. “She would have liked you even to take a little run down to Italy.” “Doubtless that would be pleasant. But there is a limit to what one can do with twenty pounds.”