nce in the boy's safety which are not accessible to
us, sir.'

'Hout,' said the tobacconist, 'I ken very weel what were her grounds for
confidence. There's Mrs. Rebecca (the maid) sitting there has tell'd me a
hundred times in my ain shop, there was nae kenning how her leddy wad
settle her affairs, for an auld gipsy witch wife at Gilsland had
possessed her with a notion that the callant--Harry Bertram ca's she
him?--would come alive again some day after a'. Ye'll no deny that, Mrs.
Rebecca? though I dare to say ye forgot to put your mistress in mind of
what ye promised to say when I gied ye mony a half-crown. But ye'll no
deny what I am saying now, lass?'

'I ken naething at a' about it,' answered Rebecca, doggedly, and looking
straight forward with the firm countenance of one not disposed to be
compelled to remember more than was agreeable to her.

'Weel said, Rebecca! ye're satisfied wi' your ain share ony way,'
rejoined the tobacconist.

The buck of the second-head, for a buck of the first-head he was not, had
hitherto been slapping his boots with his switch-whip, and looking like a
spoiled child that has lost its supper. His murmurs, however, were all
vented inwardly, or at most in a soliloquy such as this--'I am sorry, by
G-d, I ever plagued myself about her. I came here, by G-d, one night to
drink tea, and I left King and the Duke's rider Will Hack. They were
toasting a round of running horses; by G-d, I might have got leave to
wear the jacket as well as other folk if I had carried it on with them;
and she has not so much as left me that hundred!'

'We'll make the payment of the note quite agreeable,' said Mr. Protocol,
who had no wish to increase at that moment the odium attached to his
office. 'And now, gentlemen, I fancy we have no more to wait for here,
and I shall put the settlement of my excellent and worthy friend on
record to-morrow, that every gentleman may examine the contents, and have
free access to take an extract; and'--he proceeded to lock up the
repositories of the deceased with more speed than he had opened
them--'Mrs. Rebecca, ye'll be so kind as to keep all right here until we
can let the house; I had an offer from a tenant this morning, if such a
thing should be, and if I was to have any management.'

Our friend Dinmont, having had his hopes as well as another, had hitherto
sate sulky enough in the armchair formerly appropriated to the deceased,
and in which she would have been not a litt