tomizing her
countenance.

Mrs. Berry smothered an adjective to "weather" on a deep sigh. Her
wretchedness was palpable. In proportion to it, Adrian waned cheerful
and brisk. He divined enough of the business to see that there was some
strange intelligence to be fished out of the culprit who sat compressing
hysterics before him; and as he was never more in his element than when
he had a sinner, and a repentant prostrate abject sinner in hand, his
affable countenance might well deceive poor Berry.

"I presume these are Mr. Thompson's lodgings?" he remarked, with a look
at the table.

Mrs. Berry's head and the whites of her eyes informed him that they were
not Mr. Thompson's lodgings.

"No?" said Adrian, and threw a carelessly inquisitive eye about him.
"Mr. Feverel is out, I suppose?"

A convulsive start at the name, and two corroborating hands dropped on
her knees, formed Mrs. Berry's reply.

"Mr. Feverel's man," continued Adrian, "told me I should be certain to
find him here. I thought he would be with his friend, Mr. Thompson. I'm
too late, I perceive. Their entertainment is over. I fancy you have been
having a party of them here, ma'am?--a bachelors' breakfast!"

In the presence of that cake this observation seemed to mask an irony so
shrewd that Mrs. Berry could barely contain herself. She felt she must
speak. Making her face as deplorably propitiating as she could, she
began:

"Sir, may I beg for to know your name?"

Mr. Harley accorded her request.

Groaning in the clutch of a pitiless truth, she continued:

"And you are Mr. Harley, that was--oh! and you've come for Mr.?"--

Mr. Richard Feverel was the gentleman Mr. Harley had come for.

"Oh! and it's no mistake, and he's of Raynham Abbey?" Mrs. Berry
inquired.

Adrian, very much amused, assured her that he was born and bred there.

"His father's Sir Austin?" wailed the black-satin bunch from behind her
handkerchief.

Adrian verified Richard's descent.

"Oh, then, what have I been and done!" she cried, and stared blankly at
her visitor. "I been and married my baby! I been and married the bread
out of my own mouth. O Mr. Harley! Mr. Harley! I knew you when you was
a boy that big, and wore jackets; and all of you. And it's my softness
that's my ruin, for I never can resist a man's asking. Look at that
cake, Mr. Harley!"

Adrian followed her directions quite coolly. "Wedding-cake, ma'am!" he
said.

"Bride-cake it is, Mr. Harley!"

"Did you