of the
northern metropolis.'

'Of a surety,' said the Dominie, with great complacency, 'I did wrestle,
and was not overcome, though my adversary was cunning in his art.'

'I presume,' said Miss Mannering, 'the contest was somewhat fatiguing,
Mr. Sampson?'

'Very much, young lady; howbeit I girded up my loins and strove against
him.'

'I can bear witness,' said the Colonel; 'I never saw an affair better
contested. The enemy was like the Mahratta cavalry: he assailed on all
sides, and presented no fair mark for artillery; but Mr. Sampson stood to
his guns notwithstanding, and fired away, now upon the enemy and now upon
the dust which he had raised. But we must not fight our battles over
again to-night; to-morrow we shall have the whole at breakfast.'

The next morning at breakfast, however, the Dominie did not make his
appearance. He had walked out, a servant said, early in the morning. It
was so common for him to forget his meals that his absence never deranged
the family. The housekeeper, a decent old-fashioned Presbyterian matron,
having, as such, the highest respect for Sampson's theological
acquisitions, had it in charge on these occasions to take care that he
was no sufferer by his absence of mind, and therefore usually waylaid him
on his return, to remind him of his sublunary wants, and to minister to
their relief. It seldom, however, happened that he was absent from two
meals together, as was the case in the present instance. We must explain
the cause of this unusual occurrence.

The conversation which Mr. Pleydell had held with Mr. Mannering on the
subject of the loss of Harry Bertram had awakened all the painful
sensations which that event had inflicted upon Sampson. The affectionate
heart of the poor Dominie had always reproached him that his negligence
in leaving the child in the care of Frank Kennedy had been the proximate
cause of the murder of the one, the loss of the other, the death of Mrs.
Bertram, and the ruin of the family of his patron. It was a subject which
he never conversed upon, if indeed his mode of speech could be called
conversation at any time; but it was often present to his imagination.
The sort of hope so strongly affirmed and asserted in Mrs. Bertram's last
settlement had excited a corresponding feeling in the Dominie's bosom,
which was exasperated into a sort of sickening anxiety by the discredit
with which Pleydell had treated it. 'Assuredly,' thought Sampson to
himself, 'he is