es of these letters extend?" I asked.

"Over about seven years; from 1769 to 1776."

Four years prior to the marriage with our friend Matthew; three years
after the marriage.

"Are they tolerably long letters, or mere scrawls?"

"They were written in a period when nobody wrote short letters,"
answered Mr. Goodge sententiously,--"the period of Bath post and dear
postage. The greater number of the epistles cover three sides of a
sheet of letter-paper; and Mrs. Rebecca's caligraphy was small and
neat."

"Good!" I exclaimed. "I suppose it is no use my asking you to let me
see one of these letters before striking a bargain--eh, Mr. Goodge?"
"Well, I think not," answered the oily old hypocrite. "I have taken
counsel, and I will abide by the light that has been shown me. 'If thou
be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself;' such are the words of
inspiration. No, I think not."

"And what do you ask for the forty odd letters?"

"Twenty pounds."

"A stiff sum, Mr. Goodge, for forty sheets of old letter-paper."

"But if they were not likely to be valuable, you would scarcely happen
to want them," answered the minister. "I have taken counsel, young man."

"And those are your lowest terms?"

"I cannot accept sixpence less. It is not in me to go from my word. As
Jacob served Laban seven years, and again another seven years, having
promised, so do I abide by my bond. Having said twenty pounds, young
man, Heaven forbid that I should take so much as twenty pence less than
those twenty pounds!"

The solemn unction with which he pronounced this twaddle is beyond
description. The pretence of conscientious feeling which he contrived
to infuse into his sordid bargain-driving might have done honour to
Moliere's Tartuffe. Seeing that he was determined to stick to his
terms, I departed. I telegraphed to Sheldon for instructions as to
whether I was to give Goodge the money he asked, and then went back to
my inn, where I devoted myself for the next ten minutes to the study of
a railway time-table, with a view to finding the best route to
Spotswold.

After a close perusal of bewildering strings of proper names and
dazzling columns of figures, I found a place called Black Harbour, "for
Wisborough, Spotswold, and Chilton." A train left Ullerton for Black
Harbour at six o'clock in the afternoon, and was due at the latter
place at 8.40.

This gave me an interval of some hours, in which I could do nothing,
unless I received a telegram f