t find it in the belly of a fish.'

'Neither of these prodigies. They have occurred in books I am bound to
believe; they did not happen to me.'

'You swear to me you don't know the man, woman, or committee, who gave
you that sum?'

'I do not know, Mr. Beltham. In an extraordinary history, extraordinary
circumstances! I have experienced so many that I am surprised at
nothing.'

'You suppose you got it from some fool?'

'Oh! if you choose to indict Government collectively?'

'You pretend you got it from Government?'

'I am termed a Pretender by some, Mr. Beltham. The facts are these: I
promised to refund the money, and I fulfilled the promise. There you
have the only answer I can make to you. Now to my own affair. I come to
request you to demand the hand of the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld
on behalf of my son Harry, your grandson; and I possess the assurance of
the prince, her father, that it will be granted. Doubtless you, sir, are
of as old a blood as the prince himself. You will acknowledge that the
honour brought to the family by an hereditary princess is considerable:
it is something. I am prepared to accompany you to his Highness, or not,
as you please. It is but a question of dotation, and a selection from
one or two monosyllables.'

Janet shook her dress.

The squire replied: 'We 'll take that up presently. I haven't quite
done. Will you tell me what agent paid you the sum of money?'

'The usual agent--a solicitor, Mr. Beltham; a gentleman whose business
lay amongst the aristocracy; he is defunct; and a very worthy old
gentleman he was, with a remarkable store of anecdotes of his patrons,
very discreetly told: for you never heard a name from him.'

'You took him for an agent of Government, did you? why?'

'To condense a long story, sir, the kernel of the matter is, that
almost from the hour I began to stir for the purpose of claiming my
rights--which are transparent enough this old gentleman--certainly from
no sinister motive, I may presume--commenced the payment of an annuity;
not sufficient for my necessities, possibly, but warrant of an agreeable
sort for encouraging my expectations; although oddly, this excellent old
Mr. Bannerbridge invariably served up the dish in a sauce that did not
agree with it, by advising me of the wish of the donator that I should
abandon my Case. I consequently, in common with my friends, performed
a little early lesson in arithmetic, and we came to the one conclusio