s she was, peeped
into his study next morning, and, seeing the Judge alone, stepped in.

"Here's another letter from him, come by the post this morning. Can't
you do nothing for him?" she said wheedlingly, with her arm over his
neck, and her delicate finger and thumb fiddling with the lobe of his
purple ear.

"I'll try," said Judge Harbottle, not raising his eyes from the paper he
was reading.

"I knew you'd do what I asked you," she said.

The Judge clapt his gouty claw over his heart, and made her an ironical
bow.

"What," she asked, "will you do?"

"Hang him," said the Judge with a chuckle.

"You don't mean to; no, you don't, my little man," said she, surveying
herself in a mirror on the wall.

"I'm d----d but I think you're falling in love with your husband at
last!" said Judge Harbottle.

"I'm blest but I think you're growing jealous of him," replied the lady
with a laugh. "But no; he was always a bad one to me; I've done with him
long ago."

"And he with you, by George! When he took your fortune, and your spoons,
and your ear-rings, he had all he wanted of you. He drove you from his
house; and when he discovered you had made yourself comfortable, and
found a good situation, he'd have taken your guineas, and your silver,
and your ear-rings over again, and then allowed you half-a-dozen years
more to make a new harvest for his mill. You don't wish him good; if you
say you do, you lie."

She laughed a wicked, saucy laugh, and gave the terrible Rhadamanthus a
playful tap on the chops.

"He wants me to send him money to fee a counsellor," she said, while her
eyes wandered over the pictures on the wall, and back again to the
looking-glass; and certainly she did not look as if his jeopardy
troubled her very much.

"Confound his impudence, the _scoundrel_!" thundered the old Judge,
throwing himself back in his chair, as he used to do _in furore_ on the
bench, and the lines of his mouth looked brutal, and his eyes ready to
leap from their sockets. "If you answer his letter from my house to
please yourself, you'll write your next from somebody else's to please
me. You understand, my pretty witch, I'll not be pestered. Come, no
pouting; whimpering won't do. You don't care a brass farthing for the
villain, body or soul. You came here but to make a row. You are one of
Mother Carey's chickens; and where you come, the storm is up. Get you
gone, baggage! get you _gone_!" he repeated, with a stamp; for a knock
at