far north indeed. He had half a mind to
run down to Wick, as he was possessed by a certain honest zeal, which
made him long to do something hard and laborious; but his experience
told him that it was very easy for the Colonel to come up to the
neighbourhood of St. Diddulph's, whereas the lady could not go down
to Wick, unless she were to decide upon throwing herself into her
lover's arms,--whereby Bozzle's work would be brought to an end. He,
therefore, confined his immediate operations to St. Diddulph's.

He made acquaintance with one or two important persons in and about
Mr. Outhouse's parsonage. He became very familiar with the postman.
He arranged terms of intimacy, I am sorry to say, with the housemaid;
and, on the third journey, he made an alliance with the potboy at the
Full Moon. The potboy remembered well the fact of the child being
brought to "our 'ouse," as he called the Full Moon; and he was
enabled to say, that the same "gent as had brought the boy backards
and forrards," had since that been at the parsonage. But Bozzle
was quite quick enough to perceive that all this had nothing to do
with the Colonel. He was led, indeed, to fear that his "governor,"
as he was in the habit of calling Trevelyan in his half-spoken
soliloquies,--that his governor was not as true to him as he was to
his governor. What business had that meddling fellow Stanbury at St.
Diddulph's?--for Trevelyan had not thought it necessary to tell his
satellite that he had quarrelled with his friend. Bozzle was grieved
in his mind when he learned that Stanbury's interference was still
to be dreaded; and wrote to his governor, rather severely, to
that effect; but, when so writing, he was able to give no further
information. Facts, in such cases, will not unravel themselves
without much patience on the part of the investigators.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

PRISCILLA'S WISDOM.

[Illustration]

On the night after the dinner party in the Close, Dorothy was not the
only person in the house who laid awake thinking of what had taken
place. Miss Stanbury also was full of anxiety, and for hour after
hour could not sleep as she remembered the fruitlessness of her
efforts on behalf of her nephew and niece.

It had never occurred to her, when she had first proposed to herself
that Dorothy should become Mrs. Gibson that Dorothy herself would
have any objection to such a step in life. Her fear had been that
Dorothy would have become over-radiant with