Lancaster. Another change in this weathercock of
a girl. She has written no more letters to Michael Vanstone; and she has
become as anxious to make money as I am myself. We are realizing large
profits, and we are worked to death. I don't like this change in her:
she has a purpose to answer, or she would not show such extraordinary
eagerness to fill her purse. Nothing I can do--no cooking of accounts;
no self-presented testimonials--can keep that purse empty. The success
of the Entertainment, and her own sharpness in looking after her
interests, literally force me into a course of comparative honesty. She
puts into her pocket more than a third of the profits, in defiance of my
most arduous exertions to prevent her. And this at my age! this after my
long and successful career as a moral agriculturist! Marks of admiration
are very little things; but they express my feelings, and I put them in
freely.

VIII.

_Chronicle for April and May._

We have visited seven more large towns, and are now at Birmingham.
Consulting my books, I find that Miss Vanstone has realized by the
Entertainment, up to this time, the enormous sum of nearly four hundred
pounds. It is quite possible that my own profits may reach one or two
miserable hundred more. But I was the architect of her fortunes--the
publisher, so to speak, of her book--and, if anything, I am underpaid.

I made the above discovery on the twenty-ninth of the month--anniversary
of the Restoration of my royal predecessor in the field of human
sympathies, Charles the Second. I had barely finished locking up my
dispatch-box, when the ungrateful girl, whose reputation I have made,
came into the room and told me in so many words that the business
connection between us was for the present at an end.

I attempt no description of my own sensations: I merely record facts.
She informed me, with an appearance of perfect composure, that she
needed rest, and that she had "new objects in view." She might possibly
want me to assist those objects; and she might possibly return to
the Entertainment. In either case it would be enough if we exchanged
addresses, at which we could write to each other in case of need. Having
no desire to leave me too abruptly, she would remain the next day (which
was Sunday); and would take her departure on Monday morning. Such was
her explanation, in so many words.

Remonstrance, as I knew by experience, would be thrown away. Authority I
had none to exert. M