admiration to such a pitch of rapture, that he took her hand between both of his own, and shaking it long and cordially, exclaimed— "Madam, Madam, you are a paragon, a Phœnix ;—I feel—I feel-may I perish if ever I felt so before in all my life. If my poor boy should be saved, and ever forget his benefactress, I'll give him a Rose-alley salutation-I'll cudgel, I'll half kill—Adod! I'll disinherit the rascal. Hem!"

generous

Helen declared with a slight blush, as she disengaged her hand, that common humanity would have led her to conduct herself in a similar manner towards any other individual; disclaimed any merit in the transaction, and expressed her hope that the pecuniary sacrifice necessary for his nephew's preservation would not be a heavy one. 66 Lookye, Madam,” cried Goldingham," whatever it may be, every farthing of it shall come out of his own fortune, provided it will hold out; for he has but a slender patrimony, I can assure you. A young, rash, self-willed, deaf, blind, wrong-headed Jackanapes,

a gull, a widgeon, to rush into

this madcap affair in spite of my advice to the contrary. He shall smart for it, he shall pay for it; ay, and through the nose Madam, too, through the nose. Hem !"

Helen advised that, as money was no consideration compared to life, a handsome sum should be offered in the first instance, lest the worthy Judge should either decline the negociation altogether, or demand some exorbitant amount, and advance upon it, if not immediately conceded, as he had done in the case of which she had overheard the particulars. Though Goldingham would scarcely have boggled at any bribe which could ensure Reuben's safety, he neither liked to hear money so slightingly mentioned, nor could he bear to have it thought that he was not more competent, than any one else in the world, to drive a good bar gain. "Odsbuds! Madam," he exclaimed, "if you knew how people toil and turmoil to get a fortune, you would rather be inclined to think that life is no consideration compared to money. We must not spoil our own market;

it's as well

to begin low, for we can always rise in our

price. Leave me to deal with him. Fox, shark, vulture as he is, he must be deeper than I take him for, if he can gain any undue advantage over Isaac Goldingham. Hem!"

Upon this subject Helen declared her incompetency to offer any opinion, but strenu ously recommending him not to come away without a definitive understanding with his Lordship, she bade him adieu, expressed the most heartfelt wishes for the success of his mission, and set off on her return to Harpsden Hall. "How I do love a woman of business!" ejaculated Goldingham as the carriage drove away; "I have seen many brokers of twenty years' standing that have had less notion how to get out of a cross-grained affair than yonder girl. She goes through the world with her eyes and ears open, knows how to set about things, loses no time in shilly-shallying, but strikes the iron while it is hot. Make a capital wife for any one in want of such an article.”

That he might not forfeit his own claim to dispatch while eulogizing the promptitude of another, he immediately ordered out the old

VOL. II.

P

t

carriage, directed four post-horses to be sent for, packed up his silken armour and his Protestant flail, for it was impossible to say what Popish plots might suddenly explode during his residence in the metropolis; added such travelling necessaries as he might require, replenished his waistcoat pocket with lumps of sugar, and in less than an hour from the time of Helen's quitting the door, was whirling along the road to London at a pace which threatened to dislocate some of the bones of his ancient vehicle. Of his success, now that he had ascer tained the lives of the prisoners to be marketable commodities, he did not entertain a doubt. He had always considered money to be little less than omnipotent; that any man in his senses should refuse a good round sum for the life of a stranger, when he could get nothing by his death, seemed to him an absurdity too monstrous to be anticipated; and though he could not think without an occasional twinge, of drawing the hard-earned cash from his own pocket, to enrich such a scoundrel as Jeffreys, yet the preservation of his nephew reconciled

him to every thing, and he rode forward in great complacency, liberally paying his drivers, ejaculating occasional “Hems!” and not unfrequently making application to the saccharine solace in his waistcoat pocket.

Arriving without any accident in London, he proceeded immediately to his Lordship's house, but did not find it so easy to gain access to him as he had conjectured, especially when he reflected that the purport of his visit was to put a handsome sum of money into his pocket. In reward of his sanguinary services in the West, Jeffreys had now been created Lord Chancellor, an appointment which of course greatly increased the number of his engagements, and had not in any degree tended to mitigate his swaggering arrogance. When, however, Isaac was at last admitted to a private audience, it chanced that the great man, now elevated to the summit of power and dignity, was in an unusually gracious and complacent mood, a frame of mind which did not imbue him with an atom of suavity, but merely converted his habitual hectoring manner into an