(which, of course, I hope is a long while off) she
will be able to say to herself, ' Well done, thou
good and faithful,' &c. (you know the rest of it),
being a good girl, and properly brought up.

"That reminds me of the amiable and gentle
Tillotson. So he is alone again in the wide
world! But I give you notice, don't let him be
whining to me about his lonely state, broken-
hearted, and all that. I shan't listen to a single
word. I am glad, now, it has all come to him,
and for a reason that you won't suspect. I am
glad there is no woman in the matter, so we can
have done with maudlin. If you were to write
four crossed pages every mail, and whine at me
again and again in every line, it would be no
good. 'Think of his sorrow,' 'your own delicacy
at such a moment.' At such a moment!
Exactly—such a moment is just the one I would
choose. You'd see how they'd hunt him in the
House of Lords; and I hope to Heaven he'll
have the pluck to go there, and that his infernal
old bank will not break about his ears until this
is over; and if it does, I'd almost lend him the
money to go on. And I'd advise you, my delicate
young girl, to give over trying on the nun
and the sweet intercessor, for I shall just do the
opposite.

"Perhaps you pray for him every morning in
your prayers.

"And now that our sad and mournful friend
is a widower, you know, you ought to go and
pray with him.

"I wonder I give myself the bother of writing
all this stuff. I don't care one curse. ' How
shocking!' old Mrs. T. will say; and the two
unsuccessful spinsters, ' Such ribaldry, mammar!'
But if Captain Skyrocket said it, wouldn't
it be 'so funny!' and so 'shocking!' but in
quite another sense. So I say again, I don't
care one curse what any one of the lot thinks.
But I shall always take my own way, and do
just as I like, and not be dictated by sneaks,
male or female.

"Perhaps you'd like to have a little news
about myself?  With all my heart. I am very
much in want of cash; so please have it made
out for me. It's infernal the way they harass
and persecute me. "Won't let me keep my head
above water; hunting me like a rat. I declare
to you, at times I wish to Heaven I was a rat,
and could go and make for some hole under the
shore, where I could never be heard of again.
It's a shame and a disgrace that a man like me,
with a fine fortune coming to him, and as good
as his own, and secured to him by two courts,
should be hunted and worried like a cur dog by
an infernal troop of Moors and Jews. Tell them,
do, to make me out some money. You can
manage it yourself. You can whine somebody
out of it. If you don't, by Heaven! I'll come
over and do it myself.

"I can tell you, they treat me well here;
better than in your infernal England. The old
governor and his wife have me at their place
every second day, and old Shortall, who has a
daughter too, is precious civil. So, you see, there
are Mrs. Tilneys everywhere. I wish you saw
the governor's daughter, a very pretty little
thing, not one of your potwolloping girls—a nice
creature—portable, that you could put up in
your hatbox. Of course they've heard of my
property; but she is very fond of me, and shows
it, by Heavens. She has ten thousand from the
old gov., and, if I chose, I could have her
tomorrow, and if I choose, I shall. You talk of
' delicacy' and whining bilious fellows; but I
can tell you, she did as delicate a thing last
week—that I might have starved and rotted
before any one in England would have thought
of doing. She knew I wanted money, poor
little darling—'Gracey' they call her. However,
it's a long story.

"Now work yourself, and try and do some
good. Life don't consist in looking angelic,
recollect. You can work it out somewhere, if
you choose. There is a mail a couple of days
after you get this."

Such was the extraordinary letter read by
Mr. Tillotson, which seemed to be one written
by a madman, or at least after the influence of
drink. And yet he felt no indignation at the
contemptuous mention of himself: he rather
understood and pitied. "He is harassed and
persecuted," he said to his friend, " and hardly
knows what he writes." Another feeling, too,
was present to him, and covered the whole letter,
as it were, with a cloud of gold. The picture of
that gentle girl, suffering, persecuted by the
worldlings among whom she was compelled
to live, with no sympathy for her sickness.

"That's a pretty epistle for a gentleman to
write," said Mr. Tilney, tranquilly—" a man
brought up at a college. And all, sir, addressed
to a poor helpless girl, that has not a friend upon
this wide earth," added he, motioning mournfully
with a very full glass of sherry, as if it were
the wide planet to which he alluded, " that
cannot give him back his own—or—or—call him
out, and that has a peck of troubles of her own
upon her hands."

Again Mr. Tillotson became eagerly interested.
"Not serious ones, surely?"

"Depends, depends," said Mr. Tilney, shaking.
" It all comes from nature. She's sensitive,
highly sensitive. The girls and Mrs. T. try
us all very much. Between you and me,
they don't quite take to her, you know; in
fact," added Mr. Tilney, suddenly, " make her
life a perfect hell upon earth."

The other started.

"Yes," said Mr. Tilney, now in hopeless
gloom, " it comes to us all, peasant and baronet,
land-steward and peer o' the realm. The great
Creator distributes it all much of a much. I
begin to sigh for quiet and a nook of my own.
They are always in a racket at home, struggling
after this and that. And with the old luck,
Tillotson. There's young McKerchier on now—
a low young Scotch fellow in a regiment; father
makes the Kidderminster things, I believe. But
Mrs. T. says that's all right now. Money, you
know, is the thing now, not blood and breeding,
as it was in my day. And yet I think the fellow