was a question between herself and
me, that she was not nearly as rich as she was supposed, and that if the
law should award me back rents, it would ruin her."

"Gammon, sir!" replied the landlord, who had now imbibed a sufficient
quantity of wine, in addition to sundry potations during the day. "I
should not have thought you a man to be so easily hooked, Mr. Marlow;
but if you will ask the clerk of Doubledoo and Kay, who was down here,
staying three or four days about business, you'll find that she advanced
every penny, and got a mortgage for upwards of five thousand
pounds;--but I think we had better have that other bottle, sir?"

"By all means," said Marlow, and Mr. Cherrydew rolled away to fetch it.

"By the way, what was that clerk's name you mentioned?"

"Sims, sir, Sims," said the landlord, drawing the cork; and then setting
down the bottle on the table, he added, with a look of great contempt,
"he's the leetlest little man you ever saw, sir, not so tall as my girl
Dolly, and with no more stomach than a currycomb, a sort of cross breed
between a monkey and a penknife. He's as full of fun as the one, too,
and as sharp as the other. He will hold a prodigious quantity of punch,
though, small as he is. I could not fancy where he put it all, it must
have gone into his shoes."

"Come, come, Mr. Cherrydew," said Marlow, laughing, "do not speak
disrespectfully of thin people--I am not very fat myself."

"Lord bless you, sir, you are quite a fine, personable man; and in time,
with a few butts, you would be as fine a man as I am."

Marlow devoutly hoped not, but he begged Mr. Cherrydew to sit down
again, and do his best to help him through the wine he had brought; and
out of that bottle came a great many things which Marlow wanted much
more than the good sherry which it contained.

CHAPTER XXXII.

It was about ten o'clock in the day when Marlow returned to the Court,
as it was called. The butler informed him that Miss Emily was not
down--a very unusual thing with her, as she was exceedingly matutinal in
her habits; but he found, on inquiry, that she had sat up with her
mother during the greater part of the night. Marlow looked at his watch,
then at the gravelled space before the house, where his own horse was
being led up and down by his groom, and a stranger who had come with him
was sitting quietly on horseback, as if waiting for him. "I fear," said
Marlow, after a moment's musing, "I must disturb your young l