m sadly for a contest with difficulty or reverse.
Like the fat troop-horse that looks so sightly on parade, a week's
campaigning reduced him to a miserable object--flabby, shrunk,
dispirited, and with a sinking heart at least, if not a sore back.

Dorothea's person blocked up the staircase before him, or he would
have slipped by and locked himself unnoticed in his chambers.

"Can I speak with you, sir?" said the charwoman. "Now, sir, if you
please--himmediate."

Old Bargrave trembled.

"Certainly, Dorothea, certainly. What is it, my good girl? You've
heard something. They've traced him--they've found him. One minute, my
good girl--one minute, if you please."

He had preceded her through the office to his own inner room, and now,
shaking all over, sat down in his easy-chair, pressing both hands hard
on its arms to steady himself. Dorothea, staring helplessly at the
wall over his head, made a muff of her apron, and curtsied; nothing
more.

"Speak!" gasped the old gentleman convulsively.

"It's my haunt, if you please, sir," said Dorothea, with another
curtsey.

"D----n your aunt!" vociferated Bargrave. "It's my nephew! Have you
heard nothing? I'm hasty, my good girl; I'm anxious. I--I haven't
another relation in the world. Have they told you anything more?"

Dorothea began to cry.

"He be gone to 'Meriker, for sure," she whimpered, trying back on the
old consolatory suggestion; "to better hisself, no doubt. It's me,
sir; that's my haunt. She's wuss this turn. An' if so be as you could
spare me for the day--I've been and cleaned up everythink, and I'd
wipe over that there table and shake the dust out o' them curtains in
five minutes, and----"

"That will do--that will do!" exclaimed the old gentleman, aghast,
as well he might be, at the proposal, since none of the furniture in
question had been subjected to such a process for years, and immediate
suffocation, with intolerable confusion of papers, must have been the
result. "If you want to go and see your aunt, my girl, go, in heaven's
name. I can spare you as long as you like. But you mustn't tidy up
here. No; that would never do. And, Dorothea, if you should hear
anything, come and tell me that instant. Never mind the expense. I'd
give a great deal to know he was safe. Ah, I'd give all I have in the
world to see him back again."

She curtsied and hurried out, leaving Bargrave to immerse himself
in law-papers and correspondence. From sheer force of habit he