ight, for
all a stranger knew to the contrary, prove to be of some importance
in the future. Acting on this latter view, Mr. Bishopriggs--whose past
experience as "a bit clerk body," in Sir Patrick's chambers, had made
a man of business of him--produced his pen and ink, and indorsed the
letter with a brief dated statement of the circumstances under which
he had found it. "I'll do weel to keep the Doecument," he thought to
himself. "Wha knows but there'll be a reward offered for it ane o' these
days? Eh! eh! there may be the warth o' a fi' pun' note in this, to a
puir lad like me!"

With that comforting reflection, he drew out a battered tin cash-box
from the inner recesses of the drawer, and locked up the stolen
correspondence to bide its time.

The storm rose higher and higher as the evening advanced.

In the sitting-room, the state of affairs, perpetually changing, now
presented itself under another new aspect.

Arnold had finished his dinner, and had sent it away. He had next drawn
a side-table up to the sofa on which Anne lay--had shuffled the pack of
cards--and was now using all his powers of persuasion to induce her
to try one game at _Ecarte_ with him, by way of diverting her
attention from the tumult of the storm. In sheer weariness, she gave up
contesting the matter; and, raising herself languidly on the sofa, said
she would try to play. "Nothing can make matters worse than they are,"
she thought, despairingly, as Arnold dealt the cards for her. "Nothing
can justify my inflicting my own wretchedness on this kind-hearted boy!"

Two worse players never probably sat down to a game. Anne's attention
perpetually wandered; and Anne's companion was, in all human
probability, the most incapable card-player in Europe.

Anne turned up the trump--the nine of Diamonds. Arnold looked at
his hand--and "proposed." Anne declined to change the cards. Arnold
announced, with undiminished good-humor, that he saw his way clearly,
now, to losing the game, and then played his first card--the Queen of
Trumps!

Anne took it with the King, and forgot to declare the King. She played
the ten of Trumps.

Arnold unexpectedly discovered the eight of Trumps in his hand. "What
a pity!" he said, as he played it. "Hullo! you haven't marked the King!
I'll do it for you. That's two--no, three--to you. I said I should lose
the game. Couldn't be expected to do any thing (could I?) with such
a hand as mine. I've lost every thing now I'v