sky,
and the air was becoming every instant more sultry and
oppressive. Heavy drops of rain began to fall one by one in
large round spots on the dusty pavement. Red and darkgreen
umbrellas began to be unfolded; the carts to drive by more
briskly; the marble players to withdraw into the house after
sundry vociferations from some neighbouring window; and the
whole scene fairly assumed the hopeless character of a rainy
summer's evening. Meantime two men had stationed themselves
under the projecting roof of our inn at the outset of the
shower, and kept up between themselves a conversation, of
which a few words occasionally reached my ears. One of the
speakers was a man seemingly of fifty or thereabouts, of a
heavy, dull character of countenance; his dress that of a
tradesman, not of the better sort. The other was a young man
who would have been handsome had it not been for a scowl which
disfigured his otherwise well-shaped features. The oldest of
the two men said to the other, apparently in answer to some
inquiry, "Not till the old un dies, which he will soon."

"Is he as bad as that comes to?" returned the other. A cart
rambled by at that moment, and I heard nothing more, and would
have probably left the window had not the next words that were
spoken arrested my attention.

"So Alice is here?" observed the youngest of the two speakers.

"And are you still after that ere spec?" was the answer.

I immediately identified the Alice they were speaking of with
Alice Tracy, and I could not help listening on with the wish
to hear something that would corroborate or destroy this idea.

"She'll never have you, take my word for it," continued the
same man.

"May be not, while the gemman's a-courting her; but he's after
other game, I take it, now."

"I seed him here, with my own eyes, not four days ago," said
the first speaker.--"Old mother Tracy has him in her clutches,
I'll warrant you. She didn't come down with the shiners for
nothing."

"He's a limb of Satan; and if he were the devil himself, I'd
tear his eyes out first," retorted the younger man with a
fearful volley of oaths.

"And he'd snap his fingers at you, and give you into a
policeman's charge. That's no go, my hearty--"

"But if the old un is dying; as you say, and the lass comes in
for the cash, he'll not be such a d--d fool--"

"Ay, ay; but mother Tracy, with the bit of paper you know of,
would prove an awkward customer for that ere chap! But I'll
te