od many
secrets from the experience of my failures. I was well up to my work. I
might have carried it on, and I ought to have carried it on, without
help; but I was getting worn out and lazy, so I let you into my secret,
having taken it into my head that I could venture to trust you."

"You didn't trust me further than you could help, my friend," I replied
with my usual candour. "You never told me the amount left by the
reverend intestate; but I heard that down at Ullerton. A half share in
a hundred thousand pounds is worth trying for, Mr. Sheldon."

"They call it a hundred thousand down there, do they?" asked the
lawyer, with charming innocence. "Those country people always deal in
high figures. However, I don't mind owning that the sum is a handsome
one, and if you and I play our cards wisely, we may push Philip out of
the game altogether, and share the plunder between us."

Again I was obliged to confess myself unable to grasp my employer's
meaning.

"Marry Charlotte Halliday out of hand," he said, bringing his eyes and
his elbows still nearer to me, until his bushy black whiskers almost
touched my face. "Marry her before Philip gets an inkling of this
affair, and then, instead of being made a tool of by him, she'll be
safe in your hands, and the money will be in your hands into the
bargain. Why, how you stare, man! Do you think I haven't seen how the
land lies between you two? Haven't I dined at Bayswater when you've
been there? and could any man with his wits about him see you two
sentimental young simpletons together _without_ seeing how things were
going on? You are in love with Charlotte, and Charlotte is in love with
you. What more natural than that you two should make a match of it?
Charlotte is her own mistress, and hasn't sixpence in the world that
any one but you and I know of; for, of course, my brother Phil will
continue to stick to every penny of poor old Tom's money. All you have
to do is to follow up the young lady; it's the course that would
suggest itself to any man in the same case, even if Miss Halliday were
the ugliest old harridan in Christendom, instead of being a very jolly
kind of girl, as girls go."

My employer said this with the tone of a man who had never considered
the genus girl a very interesting part of creation. I suppose I looked
at him rather indignantly; for he laughed as he resumed,--

"I'll say she's an angel, if you like," he said; "and if you think her
one, so much the b