iful clustering hair that one's fingers itch to
play with, such a waist as might make a man clasp the air involuntarily,
thinking of twining his arm about it, little feet that tread so lightly
they hardly seem to walk upon the ground--to marry all this, sir,
this--hey, hey!'

'This is something more than common drivelling,' said Ralph, after
listening with a curled lip to the old sinner's raptures. 'The girl's
name?'

'Oh deep, deep! See now how deep that is!' exclaimed old Arthur. 'He
knows I want his help, he knows he can give it me, he knows it must all
turn to his advantage, he sees the thing already. Her name--is there
nobody within hearing?'

'Why, who the devil should there be?' retorted Ralph, testily.

'I didn't know but that perhaps somebody might be passing up or down the
stairs,' said Arthur Gride, after looking out at the door and carefully
reclosing it; 'or but that your man might have come back and might have
been listening outside. Clerks and servants have a trick of listening,
and I should have been very uncomfortable if Mr Noggs--'

'Curse Mr Noggs,' said Ralph, sharply, 'and go on with what you have to
say.'

'Curse Mr Noggs, by all means,' rejoined old Arthur; 'I am sure I have
not the least objection to that. Her name is--'

'Well,' said Ralph, rendered very irritable by old Arthur's pausing
again 'what is it?'

'Madeline Bray.'

Whatever reasons there might have been--and Arthur Gride appeared to
have anticipated some--for the mention of this name producing an effect
upon Ralph, or whatever effect it really did produce upon him, he
permitted none to manifest itself, but calmly repeated the name several
times, as if reflecting when and where he had heard it before.

'Bray,' said Ralph. 'Bray--there was young Bray of--no, he never had a
daughter.'

'You remember Bray?' rejoined Arthur Gride.

'No,' said Ralph, looking vacantly at him.

'Not Walter Bray! The dashing man, who used his handsome wife so ill?'

'If you seek to recall any particular dashing man to my recollection
by such a trait as that,' said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders, 'I shall
confound him with nine-tenths of the dashing men I have ever known.'

'Tut, tut. That Bray who is now in the Rules of the Bench,' said old
Arthur. 'You can't have forgotten Bray. Both of us did business with
him. Why, he owes you money!'

'Oh HIM!' rejoined Ralph. 'Ay, ay. Now you speak. Oh! It's HIS daughter,
is it?'

Naturally as this