hes-maker was in truth very unhappy. He had accused his
German assistant of obstinacy, but the German could hardly have been
more obstinate than his master. Mr. Neefit had set his heart upon
making his daughter Mrs. Newton, and had persisted in declaring that
the marriage should be made to take place. The young man had once
given him a promise, and should be compelled to keep the promise
so given. And in these days Mr. Neefit seemed to have lost that
discretion for which his friends had once given him credit. On the
occasion of his visit to the Moonbeam early in the hunting season he
had spoken out very freely among the sportsmen there assembled; and
from that time all reticence respecting his daughter seemed to have
been abandoned. He had paid the debts of this young man, who was now
lord of wide domains, when the young man hadn't "a red copper in his
pocket,"--so did Mr. Neefit explain the matter to his friends,--and
he didn't intend that the young man should be off his bargain.
"No;--he wasn't going to put up with that;--not if he knew it." All
this he declared freely to his general acquaintance. He was very
eloquent on the subject in a personal interview which he had with Mr.
Moggs senior, in consequence of a visit made to Hendon by Mr. Moggs
junior, during which he feared that Polly had shown some tendency
towards yielding to the young politician. Mr. Moggs senior might take
this for granted;--that if Moggs junior made himself master of Polly,
it would be of Polly pure and simple, of Polly without a shilling of
dowry. "He'll have to take her in her smock." That was the phrase in
which Mr. Neefit was pleased to express his resolution. To all of
which Mr. Moggs senior answered never a word. It was on returning
from Mr. Moggs's establishment in Bond Street to his own in Conduit
Street that Mr. Neefit made himself so very unpleasant to the
unfortunate German. When Ontario put on his best clothes, and took
himself out to Hendon on the previous Sunday, he did not probably
calculate that, as one consequence of that visit, the Herr Bawwah
would pass a whole week of intoxication in the little back parlour of
the public-house near St. George's Church.

It may be imagined how very unpleasant all this must have been to
Miss Neefit herself. Poor Polly indeed suffered many things; but she
bore them with an admirable and a persistent courage. Indeed, she
possessed a courage which greatly mitigated her sufferings. Let her
father