With a gesture of contempt for his own folly Mr. Wetter called a cab, and caused himself to be conveyed to his lodgings in South Audley-street, whence, at the expiration of a quarter of an hour, he issued to mount his horse, which he had ordered to be brought round to him, and to ride off at a sharp pace. Whither? With the one idea of Alice dominant in his mind, he thought he would like to see once more the spot to which his attention had once been attracted; and though he had not much daylight before him, he turned his horse's head in the direction of Hendon. Daylight was in truth beginning to wane, and Miss M'Craw, who was true to her old habits, and kept up as strict a system of espionage upon the family of the American gentleman, then domiciled in Rose Cottage, as ever she had upon Alice and John Calverley, was thinking of retiring from her post of observation at the window, when the figures of the horseman and his chestnut thoroughbred, which had formerly been so familiar to her, once more met her view. Miss M'Craw strained almost out of the window with astonishment. 'What on earth has brought him back after so long an absence?' she said to herself. 'He cannot possibly be going to call upon those horrible American people.' From her employment of this adjective, it will be gathered that Miss M'Craw did not cherish a particularly friendly feeling towards the new occupants of Rose Cottage. The fact was that her inquisitiveness and propensity to scandal came speedily under the observation of Mr. Hiram B. Crocker, the American gentleman in question, who described them under the head of 'general cussedness,' declined the acquaintance of Miss M'Craw, and had huge hoardings built up in the corners of his grounds for the purpose of intercepting her virgin gaze. No, the equestrian was not going to call at Rose Cottage; did not stop at the gate, but rode slowly on until he reined-in his horse in the accustomed spot on the brow of the hill, and raising himself in his stirrups stood for an instant looking into the garden. He remembered then how he had first seen her tending her flowers, and looking eagerly out, evidently awaiting the arrival of some one, and how in a subsequent ramble he had discovered that some one to be John Calverley of Great Walpole-street, and all that had happened therefrom. 'How well the cards lay to my hand at one time,' he said to himself with an impatient gesture; 'and what a mess I have made of the game.' And with that he shook his horse's bridle and cantered away.