has a reputation for loaning money to parents, that he may
rob their daughters of that jewel the world refuses to give them back.
And yet our best society honor him, fawn over him, and bow to him. We so
worship the god of slavery, that our minds are become debased, and yet
we seem unconscious of it. Mr. Keepum did not lend money to the old
antiquarian without a purpose. That purpose, that justice which
accommodates itself to the popular voice, will aid him in gaining.

Mr. Snivel affects a tone of moderation, whispers in the old man's ear,
and says: "Mind you tell the fortune of this girl, Bonard, as I have
directed. Study what I have told you. If she be not the child of Madame
Montford, then no faith can be put in likenesses. I have got in my
possession what goes far to strengthen the suspicions now rife
concerning the fashionable New Yorker."

"There surely is a mystery about this woman, Mr. Snivel, as you say. She
has so many times looked in here to inquire about Mag Munday, a woman in
a curious line of life who came here, got down in the world, as they all
do, and used now and then to get the loan of a trifle from me to keep
her from starvation." (Mr. Snivel says, in parentheses, he knows all
about her.)

"Ha! ha! my old boy," says Mr. Snivel, frisking his fingers through his
light Saxon beard, "I have had this case in hand for some time. It is
strictly a private matter, nevertheless. They are a bad lot--them New
Yorkers, who come here to avoid their little delicate affairs. I may yet
make a good thing out of this, though. As for that fellow, Mullholland,
I intend getting him the whipping post. He is come to be the associate
of gentlemen; men high in office shower upon him their favors. It is all
to propitiate the friendship of Bonard--I know it." Mr. Snivel concludes
hurriedly, and departs into the street, as our scene changes.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ANNA BONARD SEEKS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE ANTIQUARY.

It is night. King street seems in a melancholy mood, the blue arch of
heaven is bespangled with twinkling stars, the moon has mounted her high
throne, and her beams, like messengers of love, dance joyously over the
calm waters of the bay, so serenely skirted with dark woodland. The dull
tramp of the guardman's horse now breaks the stillness; then the
measured tread of the heavily-armed patrol, with which the city swarms
at night, echoes and re-echoes along the narrow streets. A theatre
reeking with the fumes o