, no, I hope
not--he's always so prudent-like, and wise, and good; so kind, too, to a
poor old fool like me:" and the poor old fool began to cry again.

"Silly boy--but he'll take cold at any rate: Sarah!" (here Mrs. Quarles
rung her bell, and the still-maid answered it.) "Sarah Stack, sit up
awhile for Mr. Jennings, and when he comes in, send him here to me. Poor
boy," she went on soliloquizing, "he shall have a drop or two to comfort
his stomach, and keep the chill out."

The poor boy, lying _perdu_, shuddered at the word chill, and really
wished his aunt would hold her tongue. But she didn't.

"Maybe now," the affectionate old creature proceeded, "maybe Simon was
vexed at what I let drop last night about the money. I know he loves his
sister Scott, as I do: but it'll seem hard, too, to leave him nothing. I
must make my will some day, I 'spose; but don't half like the job: it's
always so nigh death. Yes--yes, dear Si shall have a snug little
corner."

The real Simon Pure, in his own snug little corner, writhed again. Mrs.
Quarles started at the noise, looked up the chimney, under the bed,
tried the doors and windows, and actually went so near the mark as to
turn the handle of the shower-bath; "Drat it," said she, "Sarah must ha'
took away the key: well, there can't be nothing there but cloaks, that's
one comfort."

Last of all, a thought struck her--it must have been a mouse at the
preserves. And Mrs. Quarles forthwith opened the important cupboard,
where Jennings now well knew the idol of his heart was shrined. Then
another thought struck Mrs. Quarles, though probably no unusual one, and
she seemed to have mounted on a chair, and to be bringing down some
elevated piece of crockery. Simon could see nothing with his eyes, but
his ears made up for them: if ever Dr. Elliotson produced clairvoyance
in the sisters Okey, the same sharpened apprehensions ministered to the
inner man of Simon Jennings through the instrumental magnet of his
inordinately covetous desires. Therefore, though his retina bore no
picture of the scene, the feelers of his mind went forth, informing him
of every thing that happened.

Down came a Narbonne honey-pot--Simon saw that first, and it was as the
lamp of Aladdin in his eyes: then the bladder was whipped off, and the
crock set open on the table. Jennings, mad as Darius's horse at the
sight of the object he so longed for, once thought of rushing from his
hiding-place, taking the hoard by a