“Then, have the goodness to follow the boy. He will show you into the dining apartment beneath, and give you the written regulations. In an hour, you will have digested the code, and by that time I shall be with you. Throw the light more upon the ladder, boy; you can descend _without_ a ladder though, it would seem, or I should not, at this moment, have the pleasure of your company.” The intelligent smile of the Rover was unanswered by any corresponding evidence from the subject of his joke, that he found satisfaction in the remembrance of the awkward situation in which he had been left in the tower. The former caught the displeased expression of the other’s countenance, as he gravely prepared to follow the boy, who already stood in the hatchway with a light. Advancing a step with the grace and tones of sensitive breeding, he said quickly,— “Mr Wilder, I owe you an apology for my seeming rudeness at parting on the hill. Though I believed you mine, I was not sure of my acquisition. You will readily see how necessary it might be, to one in my situation, to throw off a companion at such a moment.” Wilder turned, with a countenance from which every shade of displeasure had vanished, and motioned to him to say no more. “It was awkward enough, certainly, to find one’s self in such a prison; but I feel the justice of what you say. I might have done the very thing myself, if the same presence of mind were at hand to help me.” “The good man, who grinds in the Newport ruin, must be in a sad way, since all the rats are leaving his mill,” cried the Rover gaily, as his companion descended after the boy. Wilder now freely returned his open, cordial laugh, and then, as he descended, the cabin was left to him who, a few minutes before, had been found in its quiet possession. Chapter VII. “The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.” _Apoth._ “My poverty, but not my will, consents.” _Romeo and Juliet._ The Rover arrested his step, as the other disappeared and stood for more than a minute in an attitude of high and self-gratulating triumph. It was quite apparent he was exulting in his success. But, though his intelligent face betrayed the satisfaction of the inward man, it was illumined by no expression of vulgar joy. It was the countenance of one who was suddenly relieved from intense care, rather than that of a man who was greedy of profiting by the services of others. Indeed, it would not have been difficult, for a close and practised observer, to have detected a shade of regret in the lightings of his seductive smile, or in the momentary flashes of his changeful eye. The feeling, however, quickly passed away, and his whole figure and countenance resumed the ordinary easy mien in which he most indulged in his hours of retirement.