e expression that settled on Brandon's face as he
regarded this seemingly worthless trinket. After a moment's gaze, he
uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and thrusting it into his pocket,
renewed his search. He found one or two other trifles of a similar
nature; one was an ill-done miniature set in silver, and bearing at
the back sundry half-effaced letters, which Brandon construed at once
(though no other eye could) into "Sir John Brandon, 1635, AEtat. 28;"
the other was a seal stamped with the noble crest of the house of
Brandon, 'A bull's head, ducally crowned and armed, Or.' As soon as
Brandon had possessed himself of these treasures, and arrived at the
conviction that the place held no more, he assured the conscientious
Swoppem of his regard for that person's safety, rewarded him
munificently, and went his way to Bow Street for a warrant against the
witness who had commended him to the pawnbroker. On his road thither,
a new resolution occurred to him. "Why make all public," he muttered
to himself, "if it can be avoided? and it may be avoided!" He paused a
moment, then retraced his way to the pawnbroker's, and, after a brief
mandate to Mr. Swoppem, returned home. In the course of the same
evening the witness we refer to was brought to the lawyer's house by Mr.
Swoppem, and there held a long and private conversation with Brandon;
the result of this seemed a compact to their mutual satisfaction, for
the man went away safe, with a heavy purse and a light heart, although
sundry shades and misgivings did certainly ever and anon cross the
latter; while Brandon flung himself back in his seat with the triumphant
air of one who has accomplished some great measure, and his dark face
betrayed in every feature a joyousness and hope which were unfrequent
guests, it must be owned, either to his countenance or his heart.

So good a man of business, however, was William Brandon that he allowed
not the event of that day to defer beyond the night his attention to his
designs for the aggrandizement of his niece and house. By daybreak the
next morning he had written to Lord Mauleverer, to his brother, and to
Lucy. To the last his letter, couched in all the anxiety of fondness and
the caution of affectionate experience, was well calculated to occasion
that mingled shame and soreness which the wary lawyer rightly judged
would be the most effectual enemy to an incipient passion. "I have
accidentally heard," he wrote, "from a friend of mi