en independent."

"That's true enough, doctor," said Henry; "but you know the old
proverb,--that ill-gotten wealth never thrives; so that I don't regret
not finding this money, for I am sure we should have been none the
happier with it, and perhaps not so happy."

"Oh, bother the old proverb; thirty or forty thousand pounds is no
trifle to be talked lightly of, or the loss of which to be quietly put
up with, on account of a musty proverb. It's a large sum, and I should
like to have placed it in your hands."

"But as you cannot, doctor, there can be no good possibly done by
regretting it."

"No, certainly; I don't mean that; utter regret is always a very foolish
thing; but it's questionable whether something might not be done in the
matter, after all, for you, as it appears, by all the evidence we can
collect, that it must have been Varney, after all, who jumped down upon
me from the garden-wall in so sudden a manner: and, if I the picture be
valuable to him, it must be valuable to us."

"But how are we to get it, and if we could, I do not see that it would
be of much good to anybody, for, after all, it is but a painting."

"There you go again," said the doctor, "depreciating what you know
nothing about; now, listen to me, Master Henry, and I will tell you.
That picture evidently had some sort of lining at the back, over the
original canvas; and do you think I would have taken such pains to bring
it away with me if that lining had not made me suspect that between it
and the original picture the money, in bank notes, was deposited?"

"Had you any special reason for supposing such was the case?"

"Yes; most unquestionably I had; for when I got the picture fairly down,
I found various inequalities in the surface of the back, which led me to
believe that rolls of notes were deposited, and that the great mistake
we had all along made was in looking behind the picture, instead of at
the picture itself. I meant immediately to have cut it to pieces when I
reached here with it; but now it has got into the hands of somebody
else, who knows, I suspect, as much I do."

"It is rather provoking."

"Rather provoking! is that the way to talk of the loss of Heaven knows
how many thousands of pounds! I am quite aggravated myself at the idea
of the thing, and it puts me in a perfect fever to think of it, I can
assure you."

"But what can we do?"

"Oh! I propose an immediate crusade against Varney, the vampyre, for who
but he