"Yes," answered he, more dryly than ever. "Can it be possible that your sentiments towards me have undergone a change, Mr Thriven?" rejoined she. "Ah! I forgot. You are now a man of ten thousand pounds, and I have only one. The film is falling off my eyes. O deluded Angelina!" "Then you will see the better to count the money I am to pay you," said he, attempting to laugh. "Fifty pounds, ma'am. Here it is; I will thank you for Mr Mercer's bill." "Well, sir, since it has come to this, I will none of the money. Alas! this is the effect of John Bunyan's famous book. Good-day--good-day, Mr Samuel;" and the spinster, covering her face with her handkerchief, rushed out of the room. CHAP. VII.--THE DENOUEMENT. "Thus have I got quit of the spinster," said Mr Thriven, "and thus have I too got quit of my creditors. But how comes this? She also talks of Bunyan; everybody talks of Bunyan. But this paper? No, spite--spite--let them present me with an inscription on a blank leaf. It will do as well as a piece of plate. I will get the words of praise inserted in another newspaper, and then begin to act the gentleman in earnest on my ten thousand. I shall instantly engage a buggy with a bright bay; and a man-servant, with a stripe of silver lace round his hat, shall sit on my sinister side. Let them stare and point at me. They can only say, there rides an honest man, who failed, and paid his creditors twenty shillings the pound. Ho! here comes Sharp." "What is the meaning of this?" said he, holding out the paper. "Some wretched joke of an editor who would take from me the honour intended for me by my creditors. I see by your face that you smell an action of damages." "Joke!" echoed Sharp. "That copy of Bunyan which Miss M'Falzen was lending to Mrs Bairnsfather that day when we went to Cockenzie, is now in the hands of the procurator-fiscal." "Oh, the devout maiden lends it to everybody," replied Samuel. "She will be to get the fiscal to reclaim sinners by it, rather than to punish them by the arm of the law." "Is it possible, Mr Thriven, that you can thus make light of an affair that involves banishment?" said Sharp. "Did you really write on a blank leaf of that book the details of the profit you were to make of the burning?"