own phraseology, not to speak to nobody till
somebody spoke to him.

A growing anxiety, however, to ascertain from one who had seen her
lately, how Flora had borne his absence, at length induced Charles
Holland to break his self-imposed silence.

"Jack," he said, "you have had the happiness of seeing her lately, tell
me, does Flora Bannerworth look as she was wont to look, or have all the
roses faded from her cheeks?"

"Why, as for the roses," said Jack, "I'm blowed if I can tell, and
seeing as how she don't look at me much, I doesn't know nothing about
her; I can tell you something, though, about the old admiral that will
make you open your eyes."

"Indeed, Jack, and what may that be?"

"Why, he's took to drink, and gets groggy about every day of his life,
and the most singular thing is, that when that's the case with the old
man, he says it's me."

"Indeed, Jack! taken to drinking has my poor old uncle, from grief, I
suppose, Jack, at my disappearance."

"No, I don't think it's grief," said Jack; "it strikes me it's
rum-and-water."

"Alas, alas, I never could have imagined he could have fallen into that
habit of yours; he always seemed so far from anything of this kind."

"Ay, ay, sir," said Jack, "I know'd you'd be astonished. It will be the
death of him, that's my opinion; and the idea, you know, Master Charles,
of accusing me when he gets drunk himself."

"I believe that is a common delusion of intemperate persons," said
Charles.

"Is it, sir; well, it's a very awkward I thing, because you know, sir,
as well as most people, that I'm not the fellow to take a drop too
much."

"I cannot say, Jack, that I know so much, for I have certainly heard my
uncle accuse you of intoxication."

"Lor', sir, that was all just on account of his trying it hisself; he
was a thinking on it then, and wanted to see how I'd take it."

"But tell me of Flora; are you quite certain that she has had no more
alarms from Varney?"

"What, that ere vampyre fellow? not a bit of it, your honour. Lor' bless
you, he must have found out by some means or another that I was on the
look out, and that did the business. He'll never come near Miss Flora
again, I'll be bound, though to be sure we moved away from the Hall on
account of him; but not that I saw the good of cruising out of one's own
latitude, but somehow or another you see the doctor and the admiral got
it into their heads to establish a sort of blockade, and the idea of the