e was induced by your
perseverance to allow you to regard her as your fiancy.
[Fancy-girl he probably conceived to be the vulgar English
for the elegant term which he used.] But all that must be
over between you now. _Amelia has promised to be mine_--
[this also was underscored]--and mine I intend that she
shall be. That you may find in the kind smiles of L. D.
consolation for any disappointment which this may occasion
you, is the ardent wish of your true friend,

JOSEPH CRADELL.

P.S.--Perhaps I had better tell you the whole. Mrs Roper
has been in some trouble about her house. She is a little
in arrears with her rent, and some bills have not been
paid. As she explained that she has been brought into this
by those dreadful Lupexes, I have consented to take the
house into my own hands, and have given bills to one or
two tradesmen for small amounts. Of course she will take
them up, but it was the credit that was wanting. She
will carry on the house, but I shall, in fact, be the
proprietor. I suppose it will not suit you now to remain
here, but don't you think I might make it comfortable
enough for some of our fellows; say half-a-dozen, or so?
That is Mrs Roper's idea, and I certainly think it is not
a bad one. Our first efforts must be to get rid of the
Lupexes. Miss Spruce goes next week. In the meantime we
are all taking our meals up in our own rooms, so that
there is nothing for the Lupexes to eat. But they don't
seem to mind that, and still keep the sitting-room and best
bedroom. We mean to lock them out after Tuesday, and send
all their boxes to the public-house.

Poor Cradell! Eames, as he threw himself back upon his seat and
contemplated the depth of misfortune into which his friend had
fallen, began to be almost in love with his own position. He himself
was, no doubt, a very miserable fellow. There was only one thing
in life worth living for, and that he could not get. He had been
thinking for the last three days of throwing himself before a
locomotive steam-engine, and was not quite sure that he would not do
it yet; but, nevertheless, his place was a place among the gods as
compared to that which poor Cradell had selected for himself. To
be not only the husband of Amelia Roper, but to have been driven
to take upon himself as his bride's fortune the whole of his
future mother-in-law's debts! To find himself the owner of