hot cup of tea, Mrs. Frankland, for this one is as cold as a
stone;" so Mrs. Peck felt inclined to make up for lost time, and made a
very hearty supper. She wound up with two glasses of brandy-and-water
hot, and she got Peck out of the way, for she wished to have a quiet
talk with Mr. Dempster.

Mr. Dempster was not disposed to encourage her confidence; her strange
inquiries about people he had been greatly interested in, recalled the
seance which had so much startled Francis Hogarth, and he suspected
that this must be the person who had written the letter the spirit had
been questioned about, and, consequently, that she was Hogarth's
mother; no mother, certainly, to be proud of! The spirit said that her
son ought to have nothing whatever to do with her, and Mr. Dempster was
disposed to obey all spiritual communications. Besides this, all his
instincts were strong against any intercourse with a woman so
disreputable-looking, with an expression of countenance alternately
fierce and fawning.

Now the fawning manner was put on. Mrs. Peck had an object in view--she
wanted money to take her to Melbourne, and to take her immediately, and
this easy-going, benevolent-looking Adelaide gentleman seemed to be the
most likely victim she could meet with.

She had long wished to see her daughter apart from her husband, and
there never had been such a chance since she was married; and to get
hold of one or both of the Melville girls at the same time was a
conjunction of circumstances absolutely and marvellously favourable.
Her last remittance from Mr. Phillips had been received a month before,
and was spent as soon as it was got. Peck, with whose fortunes she had
for many years connected herself, had not been lucky of late. He had
come to Adelaide at race time, and had not got on well with his bets.
He had done a little in gambling, but had got into a sort of row at a
low public-house, and been taken up and fined for being drunk and
disorderly, and dismissed with a caution; so he had gone up to the
sheep-shearing, and then had worked a little at the hay-harvest, and
again at the wheat-harvest. He could work pretty hard at such times,
and make good wages; but he had no turn for steady, regular work, and
neither had she. If she had been in Melbourne, she could have borrowed
the ten or twelve pounds needed for her passage-money, and a
decent-looking outfit from people who knew her there, and guessed that
she had some hidden means, eit