arew was delighted with his son's skill, though his wit was somewhat
wasted on him. "Why the deuce did you not play in the first game?" said
he, when the party broke up to adjourn to the hazard-table. "I suppose
it was your confounded cunning" (and here his face grew dark, as though
with some recollection of the past); "you wanted to see how they played
before you pitted yourself against them--did you? How like, how like!"

"I had no money, Sir, until Parson Whymper lent me some."

"Oh, that was it--was it?" said the Squire. "Well, well, that was not
your fault, lad, nor shall it be mine--here, catch," and out of his
breeches-pocket he took a roll of crumpled notes and flung them at him;
then suddenly turned upon his heels, with what sounded like a muttered
execration at his own folly.

Yorke did not risk this unexpected treasure on the chances of the dice,
but retired to his own room. It was a dainty chamber, as we have said,
and offered in its appointments a curious contrast to his late
sleeping-room in the keeper's lodge. He opened the door of communication
to which the Squire had referred, and found himself in a sort of
boudoir, in which, as in his own room, a good fire was burning. By the
lover of art-furniture, this latter apartment would have been pronounced
a perfect gem. Here also every article was of ebony, and flashed back
the blaze from the red coals like dusky mirrors. Yorke lit the
candles--huge waxen ones, such as the pious soul in peril sees in his
mind's eye, and promises to his saint--and looked around him with
curiosity. Like the little Marchioness of Mr. Richard Swiveller, he had
never seen such things, "except in shops;" or rather, he had seen single
specimens of such exposed in windows of great furniture warehouses,
rather as a wonder and a show than with any hope to tempt a purchaser.
On one hand stood an ebony cabinet, elaborately carved with fruit and
flowers; it was divided into three parts, and their shut doors faced
with plate-glass gave it the appearance of a tripartite altar with its
sacred fire kindled. A casket almost as large glowed close beside it,
enriched with figures and landscapes, and with shining locks and hinges,
as he afterward discovered, of solid gold. A book-case of the same
precious wood was filled with volumes bound in scarlet--all French
novels, superbly if not very decorously illustrated. But the article
which astonished the new tenant of this chamber most was the ebony