the top at Dingley Dell, and
with whom he had fallen in love. He learned that Arabella had scorned
the sprightly Bob Sawyer, and that her brother, in anger, had taken her
away from Mr. Wardle's and put her in the house of an old aunt--a dull,
close place not far from Bristol. Before he bade them good night, Winkle
had determined to find her.

He met with a shock, on returning to his inn, to come suddenly upon
Dowler sitting in the coffee-room. Winkle drew back, very pale, and was
greatly surprised to see the bloodthirsty Dowler do likewise as, growing
even paler than Winkle, he began an apology for his action of the
evening before. As a matter of fact, Dowler had run away from Bath,
too, at dawn, in fear of Winkle, and thought now the latter had pursued
him. Winkle, suspecting this, put on a look of great fierceness but
accepted the apology, and the pair shook hands.

Winkle's plan for finding Arabella Allen met now with a set-back. Sam
Weller arrived at midnight and insisted that Winkle be waked at once.
Once in his room, Sam told him Mr. Pickwick's instructions and declared
he would not leave his sight till Winkle came back with him to Bath.
This was awkward, but luckily, Mr. Pickwick himself, to whom Sam wrote,
arrived next day and released his follower.

Mr. Pickwick approved of Winkle's determination to find the pretty
Arabella, and so the next morning Sam Weller was sent on a voyage of
discovery among the servants of the town. For many hours Sam searched in
vain without a clue.

In the afternoon he sat in a lane running between rows of gardens in one
of the suburbs, when a gate opened and a maid-servant came out to shake
some carpets. Sam gallantly rose to help her, when she uttered a
half-suppressed scream. It was Mary, the good-looking housemaid whom Sam
had kissed at the house of Nupkins, the mayor of Ipswich, on the day of
the arrest of the Pickwickians and the exposure of Jingle. She had left
her place there for this new situation.

When Sam had finished his gallant speeches and Mary her blushing, he
told her of Winkle's search. What was his surprise when she told him
that Arabella was living the very next door. She let Sam come into the
garden, and presently when Arabella came out to walk, he scrambled on to
the wall and pleaded Winkle's cause.

"Ve thought ve should ha' been obliged to straitveskit him last
night," he declared. "He's been a-ravin' all day; and he says if
he can't see you afore to-mo