gone and fixed Friday the
18th for a duel. A fine thing, if he should be himself a corpse on
Friday afternoon! Who was to receive the guests? who conduct the
funeral?

The man, with all his faults, had a grateful heart; and Mr. Charlton was
his benefactor, and he felt he had no right to go and get himself killed
until he had paid the last rites to his best friend.

The difficulty admits of course of a comic view, and smells Hibernian;
but these things seem anything but droll to those whose lives and
feelings are at stake; and, indeed, there was something chivalrous and
touching in Griffith's vexation at the possibility of his benefactor
being buried without due honors, owing to his own intemperate haste to
be killed. He resolved to provide against that contingency: so, on the
Thursday, he wrote an urgent letter to Mr. Houseman, telling him he must
come early to the funeral, and be prepared to conduct it.

This letter was carried to Mr. Houseman's office at three o'clock on
Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Houseman was not at home. He was gone to a country-house nine miles
distant. But Griffith's servant was well mounted, and had peremptory
orders; so he rode after Mr. Houseman, and found him at Mr. Peyton's
house,--whither, if you please, we, too, will follow him.

In the first place, you must know that the real reason why Mr. Peyton
looked so savage, coming out of Mr. Houseman's office, was this: Neville
had said no more about the hundred pounds, and, indeed, had not visited
the house since; so Peyton, who had now begun to reckon on this sum,
went to Houseman to borrow it. But Houseman politely declined to lend it
him, and gave excellent reasons. All this was natural enough, common
enough; but the real reason why Houseman declined was a truly singular
one. The fact is, Catharine Peyton had made him promise to refuse.

Between that young lady and the Housemans, husband and wife, there was a
sincere friendship, founded on mutual esteem; and Catharine could do
almost what she liked with either of them. Now, whatever might have been
her faults, she was a proud girl, and an intelligent one: it mortified
her pride to see her father borrowing here, and borrowing there, and
unable to repay; and she had also observed that he always celebrated a
new loan by a new extravagance, and so was never a penny the richer for
borrowed money. He had inadvertently let fall that he should apply to
Houseman. She raised no open objection, but j