r a cool reception from the pair at the window.

Old John and he were as father and son, and sat there before the
cheerful blaze smoking their pipes.

"How are your Southdowns looking, Jim?" says the vicar. "How is
Scapegrace Hamlyn?"

"He is very well, sir. He and I are thinking of selling up and going to
New South Wales."

The vicar was "knocked all of a heap" at Jim's announcement; but,
recovering a little, said, "You hear him? He is going to sell his
estate--250 acres of the best land in Devon--and go and live among the
convicts. And who is going with him? Hamlyn, the wise! Oh, dear me! And
what is he going for?"

That was a question apparently hard to answer. Yet I think the real
cause was standing there, with a look of unbounded astonishment upon her
pretty face.

"Going to leave us, James!" she cried. "Why, whatever shall I do without
you?"

"Yes, Miss Mary," said James huskily. "I think I may say we've settled
to go. Hamlyn has got a letter from a cousin of his, who is making a
fortune; and besides, I've got tired of the old place somehow lately."

Time went on, and May was well advanced. That had at last reached the
vicar's ears which had driven him to risk a quarrel with his daughter
and forbid George Hawker the house.

George went home one evening and found Madge, the gipsy woman who had
brought him up, sitting before the kitchen fire.

"Well, old woman, where's the old man?"

"Away at Colyton fair," she answered.

"I hope he'll have the sense to stay there to-night He'll fall off his
horse, coming home drunk one night, and be found dead in a ditch."

"Good thing for you if he was."

"Maybe," said George; "but I'd be sorry for him, too."

"He's been a good father to you, George, and I like you for speaking up
for him. He's an awful old rascal, my boy, but you'll be a worse if you
live."

"Now stop that, Madge! I want your help, old girl."

"Ay, and you'll get it, my pretty boy. Bend over the fire, and whisper
in my ear, lad."

"Madge, old girl," he whispered, "I've wrote the old man's name where I
oughtn't to have done."

"What, again!" she answered. "Three times! For God's sake, George, mind
what you're at! Why, you must be mad! What's this last?"

"Why, the five hundred. I only did it twice."

"You mustn't do it again, George. He likes you best of anything next his
money, and sometimes I think he wouldn't spare you if he knew he'd been
robbed. You might make yourself safe for any