s at Chamounix), made up his mind that he saw
before him the hero of some gigantic forgery, or a fraudulent bankrupt
on a large scale; but, just as he had fixed on the astute question which
was to drive the first wedge into the mystery, Guy turned in his quick
walk and met him full. I doubt if he even saw the smooth-shaven, eager
face at his elbow; but he was thinking again of the lost letter, and the
savage glare in his eyes made the heart of the "earnest inquirer" quiver
under his black satin waistcoat. "D----d hard knot, that," he muttered,
disconsolately, and retreated with great loss, to writhe during the rest
of the passage in an orgasm of unsatisfied curiosity.

The weather looked worse every moment as the wild north wind came
roaring from seaward with a challenge to the vessels that lay tossing
within the jetty to come forth and meet him. The waste-pipe of the
_Sea-gull_ screamed out shrilly in answer; and the brave old ship,
shaking the foam from her bows after every plunge, as her namesake might
do from its breast-feathers, steamed out right in the teeth of the gale.

A regular "Channel night"--a night which Mr. Augustus Winder, Paris
traveler to H---- and Co., the mighty mercers of Regent Street, spoke of
in after days with a shudder of reminiscence mingling with the pride of
one who has endured and survived great peril; who has gone down to the
sea in ships, and seen the wonders of the deep. His associates--the
_elite_ of the silk-and-ribbon department--youths of polished manners
and fascinating address, than whom _non alii leviore saltu_ took the
counter in their stride--would gather round the narrator in respectful
admiration, just as the young sea-dogs of Nantucket might listen to a
veteran hunter of the sperm whale as he tells of a hurricane that caught
him in the strait between the Land of Fire and terrible Cape Horn.

Mr. Winder represented himself as having assisted all on board, from the
captain down to the cabin-boy, with his counsel and encouragement, and
as having been materially useful to the man at the wheel. The fact was,
that he cried a good deal during the night, and was incessant in his
appeals to the steward and Heaven for help. In his appeals to the latter
power he employed often a strangely modified form of the Apostles'
Creed; for his religious education had been neglected, and this was his
solitary and simple idea of an orison. However, no one was present to
detract from his triumph or