stars, you would not be slow in avenging,
Master Christian. I know your puritanical principles on that point
well," said the Duke. "Revenge may be well said to be sweet, when so
many grave and wise men are ready to exchange for it all the sugar-plums
which pleasures offer to the poor sinful people of the world, besides
the reversion of those which they talk of expecting in the way of _post
obit_."

"You may jest, my lord," said Christian, "but still----"

"But still you will be revenged on Chiffinch, and his little commodious
companion. And yet the task may be difficult--Chiffinch has so many ways
of obliging his master--his little woman is such a convenient pretty
sort of a screen, and has such winning little ways of her own, that, in
faith, in your case, I would not meddle with them. What is this refusing
their door, man? We all do it to our best friends now and then, as well
as to duns and dull company."

"If your Grace is in a humour of rambling thus wildly in your talk,"
said Christian, "you know my old faculty of patience--I can wait till it
be your pleasure to talk more seriously."

"Seriously!" said his Grace--"Wherefore not?--I only wait to know what
your serious business may be."

"In a word, my lord, from Chiffinch's refusal to see me, and some vain
calls which I have made at your Grace's mansion, I am afraid either that
our plan has miscarried, or that there is some intention to exclude
me from the farther conduct of the matter." Christian pronounced these
words with considerable emphasis.

"That were folly as well as treachery," returned the Duke, "to exclude
from the spoil the very engineer who conducted the attack. But hark ye,
Christian--I am sorry to tell bad news without preparation; but as you
insist on knowing the worst, and are not ashamed to suspect your best
friends, out it must come--Your niece left Chiffinch's house the morning
before yesterday."

Christian staggered, as if he had received a severe blow; and the blood
ran to his face in such a current of passion, that the Duke concluded
he was struck with an apoplexy. But, exerting the extraordinary command
which he could maintain under the most trying circumstances, he said,
with a voice, the composure of which had an unnatural contrast with the
alteration of his countenance, "Am I to conclude, that in leaving the
protection of the roof in which I placed her, the girl has found shelter
under that of your Grace?"

"Sir," replied Bucki