rt, or whether the worst was now over, and the grave was less cruel
than uncertainty. On the following day we all set out for Cumberland.

In the interval, Uncle Jack had been almost constantly at the house,
and, to do him justice, he had seemed unaffectedly shocked at the
calamity that had befallen Roland. There was, indeed, no want of heart
in Uncle Jack, whenever you went straight at it; but it was hard to
find if you took a circuitous route towards it through the pockets. The
worthy speculator had indeed much business to transact with my father
before he left town. The Anti-Publisher Society had been set up, and it
was through the obstetric aid of that fraternity that the Great Book was
to be ushered into the world. The new journal, the "Literary Times,"
was also far advanced,--not yet out, but my father was fairly in for it.
There were preparations for its debut on a vast scale, and two or three
gentlemen in black--one of whom looked like a lawyer, and another like a
printer, and a third uncommonly like a Jew--called twice, with papers
of a very formidable aspect. All these preliminaries settled, the last
thing I heard Uncle Jack say, with a slap on my father's back, was,
"Fame and fortune both made now! You may go to sleep in safety, for you
leave me wide awake. Jack Tibbets never sleeps!"

I had thought it strange that, since my abrupt exodus from Trevanion's
house, no notice had been taken of any of us by himself or Lady Ellinor.
But on the very eve of our departure came a kind note from Trevanion to
me, dated from his favorite country seat (accompanied by a present of
some rare books to my father), in which he said, briefly, that there
had been illness in his family which had obliged him to leave town for
a change of air, but that Lady Ellinor expected to call on my mother
the next week. He had found amongst his books some curious works of the
Middle Ages, amongst others a complete set of Cardan, which he knew my
father would like to have, and so sent them. There was no allusion to
what had passed between us. In reply to this note, after due thanks on
my father's part, who seized upon the Cardan (Lyons edition, 1663, ten
volumes folio) as a silk-worm does upon a mulberry-leaf, I expressed our
joint regrets that there was no hope of our seeing Lady Ellinor, as we
were just leaving town. I should have added something on the loss my
uncle had sustained, but my father thought that since Roland shrank from
any menti