land,--

"I know this public wedding to be distasteful to you, and most
particularly do I know it is distasteful to Flora; so, if you do not
mind playing a trick upon the old man, I can very easily put you in the
way of cheating him entirely."

"Indeed; I should like to hear, and, what is more, I should like to
practise, if you think it will not so entirely offend him as to make him
implacable."

"Not at all, not at all; he will laugh himself, when he comes to know
it, as much as any of us; the present difficulty will be to procure
Flora's connivance; but that we must do the best way we can by
persuasion."

What this scheme was will ultimately appear; but, certain it is, that
the old admiral had no suspicion of what was going on, and proceeded to
make all his arrangements accordingly.

From his first arrival in the market town--in the neighbourhood of which
was Bannerworth Hall--it will be recollected that he had taken a great
fancy to the lawyer, in whose name a forged letter had been sent him,
informing him of the fact that his nephew, Charles Holland, intended
marrying into a family of vampyres.

It was this letter, as the reader is aware, which brought the old
admiral and Jack Pringle into the neighbourhood of the Hall; and,
although it was a manoeuvre to get rid of Charles Holland, which failed
most signally, there can be no doubt but that such a letter was the
production of Sir Francis Varney, and that he wrote it for the express
purpose of getting rid of Charles from the Hall, who had begun
materially to interfere with his plans and projects there.

After some conversation with himself, the admiral thought that this
lawyer would be just the man to recommend the proper sort of people to
be invited to the wedding of Charles and Flora; so he wrote to him,
inviting himself to dinner, and received back a very gracious reply from
the lawyer, who declared that the honour of entertaining a gentleman
whom he so much respected as Admiral Bell, was greater than he had a
right to expect by a great deal, and that he should feel most grateful
for his company, and await his coming with the greatest impatience.

"A devilish civil fellow, that attorney," said the admiral, as he put
the letter in his pocket, "and almost enough to put one in conceit of
lawyers."

"Yes," said Jack Pringle, who had overheard the admiral read the letter.

"Yes, we will honour him; and I only hope he will have plenty of grog;
because, you