were together in the back part, and
there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices
which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my entering,
and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a tremulous tone
that he was very glad I had come.

'You interrupted us at a critical moment,' said he, pointing to the man
whom I had found in company with him; 'this fellow will murder me one
of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if he had dared.'

'Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,' returned the other,
after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; 'we all know that!'

'I almost think I could,' cried the old man, turning feebly upon him.
'If oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I
would be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.'

'I know it,' returned the other. 'I said so, didn't I? But neither
oaths, or prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and
mean to live.'

'And his mother died!' cried the old man, passionately clasping his
hands and looking upward; 'and this is Heaven's justice!'

The other stood lunging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him
with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty or
thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the expression
of his face was far from prepossessing, having in common with his
manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent air which repelled
one.

'Justice or no justice,' said the young fellow, 'here I am and here I
shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for
assistance to put me out--which you won't do, I know. I tell you again
that I want to see my sister.'

'YOUR sister!' said the old man bitterly.

'Ah! You can't change the relationship,' returned the other. 'If you
could, you'd have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you
keep cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and
pretending an affection for her that you may work her to death, and add
a few scraped shillings every week to the money you can hardly count. I
want to see her; and I will.'

'Here's a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here's a generous spirit
to scorn scraped-up shillings!' cried the old man, turning from him to
me. 'A profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only upon
those who have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon society
which knows nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar to