is passions became dead and of old date.
This, then, would be his for ever! Love, for whom earth had been too
small, crept exultingly into a nut-shell. He clasped the treasure on his
breast, and saw a life beyond his parting with her.

Strengthened thus, he wrote by the morning light to Laxley. The letter
was brief, and said simply that the act of which Laxley had been
accused, Evan Harrington was responsible for. The latter expressed
regret that Laxley should have fallen under a false charge, and, at
the same time, indicated that if Laxley considered himself personally
aggrieved, the writer was at his disposal.

A messenger had now to be found to convey it to the village-inn. Footmen
were stirring about the house, and one meeting Evan close by his door,
observed with demure grin, that he could not find the gentleman's
nether-garments. The gentleman, it appeared, was Mr. John Raikes, who
according to report, had been furnished with a bed at the house, because
of a discovery, made at a late period over-night, that farther the
gentleman could not go. Evan found him sleeping soundly. How much
the poor youth wanted a friend! Fortune had given him instead a born
buffoon; and it is perhaps the greatest evil of a position like Evan's,
that, with cultured feelings, you are likely to meet with none to know
you. Society does not mix well in money-pecking spheres. Here, however,
was John Raikes, and Evan had to make the best of him.

'Eh?' yawned Jack, awakened; 'I was dreaming I was Napoleon Bonaparte's
right-hand man.'

'I want you to be mine for half-an-hour,' said Evan.

Without replying, the distinguished officer jumped out of bed at a
bound, mounted a chair, and peered on tip-toe over the top, from which,
with a glance of self-congratulation, he pulled the missing piece of
apparel, sighed dejectedly as he descended, while he exclaimed:

'Safe! but no distinction can compensate a man for this state of
intolerable suspicion of everybody. I assure you, Harrington, I wouldn't
be Napoleon himself--and I have always been his peculiar admirer--to
live and be afraid of my valet! I believe it will develop cancer
sooner or later in me. I feel singular pains already. Last night, after
crowning champagne with ale, which produced a sort of French Revolution
in my interior--by the way, that must have made me dream of Napoleon
last night, with my lower members in revolt against my head, I had to
sit and cogitate for hours on a hiding