plenished his purse by the large sum won from Sir Harcourt, when a servant entered, put the following letter into his hand, and retired.

"SIR,

"When you receive this I shall be

many

miles

off, on my road to London. I have examined the dice with which you played last night, and find them to be loaded! In the hope that you may be enabled to offer some explanation of this affair, I shall wait a fortnight for your answer. If I do not then hear from you, I shall lay the whole transaction before the Clubs to which we both belong, in Pall-Mall, and St. James's-street, and receive their instructions how I ought to act.

A sudden revulsion turned the whole mass of the Squire's blood at the perusal of this letter: a deep burning flush spread itself over his features, drops of perspiration started from his

forehead, his eyes stared upon vacancy; and as he drew up a long breath and puffed it out again with distended cheeks, he handed over the letter to his comrade without uttering a word.

66

Impossible!" exclaimed Chinnery, after having read it; "I buried them in this flowerpot." After thrusting his fingers into the earth, and grubbing about for some time, his countenance assumed that chapfallen look peculiar to a detected knave, as he stammered out, "Damnation ! somebody has prigged them away; it must have been that sly old cove Goldingham, for there was no one else in the room."

66

'Why did you bury them? Were they then indeed loaded?" inquired the Squire, hardly knowing what he said, but still willing to effect ignorance.

"Were they!" rejoined Chinnery, in a sneering tone;

"fudge! don't try to come the crank over us. You know they were."

"Whoop! I am exposed, disgraced, ruined, irrecoverably ruined!" exclaimed the Squire,

with that desperate calmness of voice and manner, which is always alarming in a man whose emotions are habitually expressed with violence. "Ruined? so you were before," said Chinnery, sullenly.

the

As Hartfield looked up, and encountered with his eye the pictures of his ancestors that hung around the room, the thought of the disgrace that he was about to entail upon family, one of the few points upon which he evinced any depth of feeling, smote him to the heart. His apprehensions were disturbed by wine and want of sleep, the expiring candles sent a dim light through the room, and as his looks fell upon the portrait of his father, he fancied that he saw him frown and shake his head at him. At this supposed portent his emotions, which had been calmed only by being stunned, rekindled into fury, and leaping from his chair like a tiger, he grappled the terrified Chinnery by the throat, while he shouted out in a voice rendered hoarse by passion-" You lie, scoundrel! I was not ruined, character was not blasted! Look there,

for

my

you infernal villain !" he continued, pointing to the portraits" look there! Those are the members of my family for the last two hundred years, not one of whom was ever guilty of a knavish or infamous action. I am the first who have degraded the name of Hartfield; you are the cursed traitor that have brought me to this disgrace-See! see! by Heavens, my father shuts his eyes upon me!-Villain! villain! you shall expiate your offence."

Almost throttling the culprit at these words by the increased energy of his gripe, he stretched out his hand to a carving-knife that had been left upon the side-table, and which was the only weapon within his reach. He already grappled it-it gleamed in the air, and in a transport of phrenzy he was about to plunge it into Chinnery's body, when, from the struggle of his passions, he was seized with a choking at the throat, which threatened suffocation, and compelled him to relax his hold of his intended victim. Availing himself of this reprieve, the latter sunk trembling upon his knees, and in the most abject terms professed his readiness to

write to Sir Harcourt, taking the whole blame of the transaction upon himself, and fully acquitting the Squire. He declared, moreover, that if the latter would only be pacified, and listen to him for five minutes, he had a new scheme to propose which could not fail to gratify all his wishes, and completely restore his fallen fortunes.

Somewhat pacified at the thought of saddling Chinnery with the whole infamy of his own fraudulent attempt; eager to catch at any suggestion in his present desperate circumstances, and yet distrusting all that could emanate from such an unlucky quarter, the Squire exclaimed in an exhausted tone, and with an incredulous sneer— 66 Whoop! a new schemeas hopeful a one as the last, I suppose? 'Sblood! let us hear it, at any rate."

As soon as Chinnery found his throat at liberty, he proceeded to unfold his plan; which was, that the Squire should forcibly run away with Helen, and secure her fortune by compelling her to marry him.

H