and in excellent order,
for which please accept my best thanks.

"I shall remit you in a day or two L100 on account."

This letter, lying among some twenty or thirty similar ones on Mr.
Runnington's table, on the morning of its arrival in town, was opened in
its turn; and then, in like manner, with most of the others, handed over
to the managing clerk, in order that he might inquire into and report
upon the state of the various matters of business referred to. As to the
last item (_Doe dem. Titmouse_ v. _Roe_) in Mr. Parkinson's letter,
there seemed no particular reason for hurrying; so two or three days had
elapsed before Mr. Runnington, having some little casual business to
transact with Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, bethought himself of
looking at his Diary, to see if there were not something else that he
had to do with that very sharp "house." Putting, therefore, the
Declaration in _Doe d. Titmouse_ v. _Roe_ into his pocket, it was not
long before he was to be seen at the office in Saffron Hill--and in the
very room in it which had been the scene of several memorable interviews
between Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse and Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap. I
shall not detail what transpired on that occasion between Mr.
Runnington, and Messrs. Quirk and Gammon, with whom he was closeted for
nearly an hour. On quitting the office his cheek was flushed, and his
manner somewhat excited. After walking a little way in a moody manner
and with slow step, he suddenly jumped into a hackney-coach, and within
a quarter of an hour's time had secured an inside place in the Tally-ho
coach, which started for York at two o'clock that afternoon--much
doubting within himself, the while, whether he ought not to have set off
at once in a post-chaise and four. He then made one or two calls in the
Temple; and, hurrying home to the office, made hasty arrangements for
his sudden journey into Yorkshire. He was a calm and experienced man--in
fact, a first-rate man of business; and you may be assured that this
rapid and decisive movement of his had been the result of some very
startling disclosure made to him by Messrs. Quirk and Gammon.

Now, let us glide back to the delightful solitude which we reluctantly
quitted so short a time ago.

Mr. Aubrey was a studious and ambitious man; and in acceding so readily
to the wishes of his wife and sister, to spend the Christmas recess at
Yatton, had been not a little influenced by one consideration,