and uncertain. Hard words he could
have returned, violence he would have repaid with interest; but this
cool, complacent, contemptuous, self-possessed reception, caused him to
feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate arguments.
Everything contributed to this effect. His own rough speech, contrasted
with the soft persuasive accents of the other; his rude bearing, and
Mr Chester's polished manner; the disorder and negligence of his
ragged dress, and the elegant attire he saw before him; with all the
unaccustomed luxuries and comforts of the room, and the silence that
gave him leisure to observe these things, and feel how ill at ease they
made him; all these influences, which have too often some effect on
tutored minds and become of almost resistless power when brought to bear
on such a mind as his, quelled Hugh completely. He moved by little and
little nearer to Mr Chester's chair, and glancing over his shoulder
at the reflection of his face in the glass, as if seeking for some
encouragement in its expression, said at length, with a rough attempt at
conciliation,

'ARE you going to speak to me, master, or am I to go away?'

'Speak you,' said Mr Chester, 'speak you, good fellow. I have spoken,
have I not? I am waiting for you.'

'Why, look'ee, sir,' returned Hugh with increased embarrassment, 'am I
the man that you privately left your whip with before you rode away from
the Maypole, and told to bring it back whenever he might want to see you
on a certain subject?'

'No doubt the same, or you have a twin brother,' said Mr Chester,
glancing at the reflection of his anxious face; 'which is not probable,
I should say.'

'Then I have come, sir,' said Hugh, 'and I have brought it back, and
something else along with it. A letter, sir, it is, that I took from
the person who had charge of it.' As he spoke, he laid upon the
dressing-table, Dolly's lost epistle. The very letter that had cost her
so much trouble.

'Did you obtain this by force, my good fellow?' said Mr Chester, casting
his eye upon it without the least perceptible surprise or pleasure.

'Not quite,' said Hugh. 'Partly.'

'Who was the messenger from whom you took it?'

'A woman. One Varden's daughter.'

'Oh indeed!' said Mr Chester gaily. 'What else did you take from her?'

'What else?'

'Yes,' said the other, in a drawling manner, for he was fixing a very
small patch of sticking plaster on a very small pimple near the corner
of his