ain of the expense afterwards,' said Mrs Sliderskew,
sulkily.

'I am afraid we must live expensively for the first week,' returned
Arthur, with a groan, 'and then we must make up for it. I won't eat more
than I can help, and I know you love your old master too much to eat
more than YOU can help, don't you, Peg?'

'Don't I what?' said Peg.

'Love your old master too much--'

'No, not a bit too much,' said Peg.

'Oh, dear, I wish the devil had this woman!' cried Arthur: 'love him too
much to eat more than you can help at his expense.'

'At his what?' said Peg.

'Oh dear! she can never hear the most important word, and hears all the
others!' whined Gride. 'At his expense--you catamaran!'

The last-mentioned tribute to the charms of Mrs Sliderskew being uttered
in a whisper, that lady assented to the general proposition by a harsh
growl, which was accompanied by a ring at the street-door.

'There's the bell,' said Arthur.

'Ay, ay; I know that,' rejoined Peg.

'Then why don't you go?' bawled Arthur.

'Go where?' retorted Peg. 'I ain't doing any harm here, am I?'

Arthur Gride in reply repeated the word 'bell' as loud as he could roar;
and, his meaning being rendered further intelligible to Mrs Sliderskew's
dull sense of hearing by pantomime expressive of ringing at a
street-door, Peg hobbled out, after sharply demanding why he hadn't said
there was a ring before, instead of talking about all manner of things
that had nothing to do with it, and keeping her half-pint of beer
waiting on the steps.

'There's a change come over you, Mrs Peg,' said Arthur, following her
out with his eyes. 'What it means I don't quite know; but, if it lasts,
we shan't agree together long I see. You are turning crazy, I think. If
you are, you must take yourself off, Mrs Peg--or be taken off. All's one
to me.' Turning over the leaves of his book as he muttered this, he soon
lighted upon something which attracted his attention, and forgot Peg
Sliderskew and everything else in the engrossing interest of its pages.

The room had no other light than that which it derived from a dim and
dirt-clogged lamp, whose lazy wick, being still further obscured by a
dark shade, cast its feeble rays over a very little space, and left all
beyond in heavy shadow. This lamp the money-lender had drawn so close to
him, that there was only room between it and himself for the book over
which he bent; and as he sat, with his elbows on the desk, and his sha