nd a little wooden bowl of sovereigns or gold
coins of some kind or other.

On a brass plate upon the door of this establishment there appeared the
name of Jacob Nowell, silversmith and money-changer.

Gilbert Fenton stared in amazement at this inscription. It must needs be
some relative of Marian's he was about to see.

He opened the door, bewildered a little by this discovery, and a shrill
bell gave notice of his entrance to those within. A tall lanky young man,
with a sallow face and sleek black hair, emerged quickly from some door
in the obscure background, and asked in a sharp voice what the visitor
pleased to want.

"I wish to see Mr. Nowell, the writer of a letter addressed to the
post-office in Wigmore Street."

The sallow-faced young man disappeared without a word, leaving Gilbert
standing in the dimly lighted shop, where he saw more old silver crowded
upon shelves behind glass doors, carved ebony cabinets looming out of the
dusk, and here and there an old picture in a tarnished frame. On the
counter there was a glass case containing foreign bank-notes and gold,
some curious old watches, and other trinkets, a baby's coral, a battered
silver cup, and a gold snuff-box.

While Gilbert waited thus he heard voices in a room at the back--the
shrill tones of the sallow young man and a feeble old voice raised
querulously--and then, after a delay which seemed long to his impatience,
the young man reappeared and told him Mr. Nowell was ready to see him.

Gilbert went into the room at the end of the shop--a small dark parlour,
more crowded with a heterogeneous collection of plate, pictures, and
bric-a-brac of all kinds than the shop itself. Sultry as the July evening
was, there was a fire burning in the pinched rusty grate, and over this
fire the owner of the room bent affectionately, with his slippered feet
on the fender, and his bony hands clasping his bony knees.

He was an old man, with long yellowish-white hair streaming from beneath
a velvet skull-cap, and bright black eyes deep set in a pale thin face.
His nose was a sharp aquiline, and gave something of a bird-like aspect
to a countenance that must once have been very handsome. He was wrapped
in a long dressing-gown of some thick grey woollen stuff.

The sallow-faced young man lingered by the half-glass door between the
parlour and the shop, as if he would fain have remained a witness to the
interview about to take place between his master and the strange