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unusual manner in a manuscript. It was a French translation of the Epistles and Gospels, par Frère Jehan de Vignay, de l'orde du hault pas, à la requeste de Madame la Royne Jehanne de Bourgoigne, jadis femme de Phélipe de Valois, Roy de France, où temps qu'il vivoit, ce fut l'an de grace MCCCXXXVI' (L.120). The Romaunt de la Rose was perhaps the most popular work in the middle ages. Lot 638 was a fourteenth-century manuscript of it, with seventy-two miniatures, and richly illuminated capitals (L.90).

All who have studied manuscripts know the great rarity of undoubted examples of English work, particularly if of an early period. The Romance of Christ (738), ornamented with one hundred and fifty drawings in outline, heightened with colour, was a work of great interest, as it was unquestionably of English execution. The artist has exercised his fancy in giving us a series of scenes of the childhood and other portions of our Lord's life, selecting chiefly legendary in preference to scriptural treatment of the subjects. Mr Perkins picked up this remarkable volume for eighteen guineas, and it now realised L.400.

In the fifteenth century, the diapered backgrounds of the miniatures of an earlier period were giving way to landscape and architectural ones. The beautiful decoration called grisaille was also coming into fashion. A good example of this was 281, Heures à l'Usage de Rome (L.92). Examples of early French poets are rare. Lot 152 was the works of Alain Chartier, riehly illuminated (L.69). A very curious book was (375) Chronique de la Boucachardine (a scriptural and historical chronicle, compiled by Jehan de Coucy, Chevalier Normant,' in 1416), containing many miniatures (L.180).

functions of living beings, some things may be
found which are exactly like ordinary fermenta-
tion. Let us go a little into the matter, touching
as lightly as possible on scientific technicalities.
By infinitely multiplying and varying the
combination of atoms, chemical action gives birth
to a great number of bodies; but these substances
are generally distinguished from those of the in-
organic kingdom by their instability. The particles
group themselves, and form edifices, the balance
of which is deranged or modified by the slightest
influences. These alterations may be produced in
various ways by chemical or physical agents. A
high temperature, for instance, destroys all organic
substances; the saccharine principles are decom-
posed before the heat reaches two hundred degrees,
sometimes below a hundred; and those composed
of albumen are much less stable.

more

Taking three hundred degrees as a point of departure, most complex organic substances begin to divide and resolve themselves into a simple composition. It is not heat alone which works out these changes; certain things are endowed with the power of provoking and modifying the composition of the organisms amidst which they are placed. These are ferments. That which characterises them is, that they act in a very small compass, are of light weight, and do not seem to intervene chemically-that is to say by their own elements, in the phenomena which they excite. From very early ages, the particular part which ferments play has been known, the leaven necessary to raise bread offering a very familiar example.

They are all composed of four organic elements: oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and azote; these are matters of animal or vegetable origin which are susceptible of undergoing spontaneous decomposition, sometimes called putrefaction. To make the

stood, it is sufficient to say that they occur not only in the phenomena of death, or the decomposition of living organisms, but in every act of vitality.

All manuscripts of the fifteenth century, and, indeed, of any other period in the collection, were thrown into the shade by Lydgate's Siege of Troy-importance of these ferments more clearly underthe identical book presented by the author to Henry V. Mr Perkins bought this book for L.99, 15s.; and it now fetched L.1320. The paintings-about seventy in number-which adorn this extraordinary example of English secular art are chiefly placed at the bottom of the pages in the broad margins, and not introduced in the text. In the first of these paintings, the author is shewn presenting his book to the king. These illuminations are very valuable for the costumes, armour, &c. of the period.

Such were some of the curiosities in connection with the sale of a library which had been gathered together by one of the greatest bibliomaniacs within living memory.

CURIOSITIES OF FERMENTATION. EVERY one knows what is meant by fermentation, as shewn in various liquids, the result being a very extraordinary change of condition. But it is not generally considered that the change is effected by inherent chemical forces, and that fermentation has much to do in the structure of plants and animals; or, in other words, that fermentation is the agency appointed by Divine power to effect the wonderful transformations taking place in living as well as in many kinds of dead matter. In this view, the subject assumes a very grand character. Existence, we may say in a metaphor, is but one long fermentation, in every process of which a drama is carried for particular ends. In particular

In the vegetable kingdom, germination is closely assimilated to fermentation. The seed incloses some particles of azote, which, under peculiar circumstances of dampness, heat, or the influence of the air, act on the other parts of the seed; the vegetable functions are distributed and regulated by degrees, thanks to the metamorphosis accomplished by fermentation, and the plant begins to grow. The ripening of fruit is equally due to the presence of a ferment; and finally, the last transformation of the vegetable, when it is destroyed, and its organs are worn out, is accomplished under the influence of fermenting matters. In the animal kingdom, the complication of vital phenomena is greater; but it is not questioned that the putrefaction of the corpse, the digestion, the dissolution of food by the saliva and other liquids, the action of the pancreatic fluid on fat bodies, the gastric juice on azotic food, and finally, the muchto-be-feared effects arising from venom, miasma, and virus of every kind, are in reality only more or less complex forms of fermentation. Thus, it is impossible to exaggerate its importance when it intervenes in all physiological actions, from the fecundation of the germ to the return of all that composes the corpse to common lifeless matter.

Fermentation has always been looked upon as an intermediate phenomenon between chemical and

vital action; it represents one of the fundamental mechanisms to which we must have recourse for the interpretation of many chemical changes which are effected in organised beings. How, then, can these curious appearances be explained without banishing them from chemistry? It may be done by uniting them to what are generally called acts of presence, or of contact, of which various examples could be given in relation to solid inorganic substances.

Passing from these, we will compare the appearances of the germination of plants with those the chemist can produce in his laboratory; the series of natural with artificial phenomena.

The seed of a plant incloses a certain starchy matter and an azoted ferment, called diastase. Under the influence of the latter, the starch is changed into dextrine, a substance which has the same chemical composition; and finally the dextrine assimilates to itself the elements of water, and becomes glucose, or grape-sugar: this is how sugar takes its rise in germinating seeds, and there can never be fermentation without the presence of sugar. When the chemist wishes to reproduce with his apparatus the delicate phenomena which operate in the organs of plants, he takes starch, washes it in water, and adds to it diastase, which he has extracted from sprouted barley: he warms this mixture at a rather high temperature, and soon the starch is dissolved into dextrine; this progressively changes into grape-sugar. There is no necessity in working this transformation to borrow the azoted ferment from a vegetable; it may be obtained by the help of an acid, which, by simple contact, and without uniting itself to the starch, or giving up any of its own elements, changes the starch into dextrine and grape-sugar at the temperature of a hundred degrees.

Thus the chemist imitates exactly all that passes in the germination of plants. In the liver of animals, it has been shewn that this organ is the true seat of a sugar formation; but all the appearances of fermentation are not so easy to imitate as the simple effects of germination; for example, alcoholic fermentation-that is to say the transformation of a sweet matter into alcohol. This operation forms the base of the fabrication of liquors, which, in one form or another, every nation employs as a drink. The juice of the grape, of the maple and palm trees; beer from sprouted barley, cider from apples, hydromel from honey, sour-milk used by the Tartars-all owe their intoxicating qualities to alcohol, and this substance is formed in them by the fermentation of sugary particles.

The process may be observed very clearly in the reaction of yeast on grape-sugar or glucose: this is dissolved in water, and about a fiftieth part of its weight of beer-yeast is added to it; the temperature being maintained at thirty degrees. Soon the glucose begins to decompose into alcohol and carbonic acid, which disengages itself in little bubbles. The movement ceases when all the sugar disappears, which generally occurs after an interval of twenty-four or thirty-six hours. It may be asked, what are the properties of the ferment whose action is so powerful? Examined through a microscope, yeast seems to be formed of little globules, rather elongated, of almost infinitesimal dimensions. Those globules are organised cells, and may be classed as a kind of cryptogame; placed in sweet

liquid, they excite fermentation, and at the same time bud and multiply. New globules are found beside the first, and increase in size by forming more and more extended branches.

Leaven is, then, an organised being; chemically, it is constituted by a mixture of an azoted, albuminoid body and a principle identical in its nature with the ligneous matter of wood; containing, however, more traces of phosphate and fat. Alcoholic fermentation is hastened and made more easy by the direct addition of yeast from beer; but it operates also in sweet liquids under the influence of other azotic matters, when these substances are favourable to the spontaneous production of leaven, and contain its elements. This accounts for the fact, that the juice of the grape, clear at the time when it runs from the vat, begins to work as soon as it comes in contact with the air, and changes into alcohol; whilst the azoted matters contained in the grape-skin give birth to leaven, which separates itself under the form of a deposit and an insoluble pellicle. When to a sweet syrup are added azotic matters analogous to albumen, to certain phosphates, and an imponderable trace of leaven, this develops itself by borrowing its materials from the surrounding substances. It is not even necessary that these last should be of organic origin; it is sufficient if they contain azote: the phenomenon is also produced when ammoniacal salts replace albuminoid matters. It is strange that the albumen, or white of egg, is, on the contrary, not fit to furnish the materials for leaven.

The birth and multiplication of leaven have furnished arguments to the partisans of spontaneous generation. M. Pasteur, who is a strong opponent of the doctrine, appears to have demonstrated that these appearances must be attributed to the atmosphere, the dust of which is mingled with the seeds of cryptogames of the same order as those of leaven. In truth, fermentation is not developed in vegetable liquids which have been boiled so as to destroy all the germs which might fall from the atmosphere; neither does it take place when these liquids are in jars hermetically sealed, or when it can only penetrate at a temperature sufficiently high to destroy seeds and eggs. Another plan has been tried by straining the air through a long tube filled with cotton, which retained all the solid particles; the same negative result was arrived at, whilst the cotton, when placed in a fermentable liquor, being enriched with seeds, developed the ordinary growths. Chemists have also distinguished by the help of the microscope the spores capable of producing fermentation or not.

M. Pouchet, Professor Owen, and Mr Herbert Spencer, who are the leaders of the battle on the other side, have also tried experiments of a similar kind, and with the greatest care, yet have come to an opposite conclusion, and affirm that the conversion of dead matter into living beings is continually going on everywhere at the present time. Moulds, mildews, parasites, infusoria, fermentation, or the theoretic molecules of zymotic disease, often arise without any recognisable cause, and without apparent origin, from pre-existences of a like nature with themselves. The professors adhering to each of these doctrines are among the most distinguished in science, and equally command respect; during the next thirty years, the question will probably have assumed a very different phase,

and the wisest way is not to form any strong opinion on one side or the other, but to wait.

It might be argued that the living animal is nothing but a vessel where reaction is always going on, an inclosed field where chemical and physical forces carry on a perpetual conflict; and when it has been shewn that the appearances of fecundation, nutrition, death itself, are only ordinary fermentations, where, then, is the seat of those mysterious forces which are named will, instinct, desire, and, when man is reached, conscience? Are we nothing but laboratories, chemical and physical microcosms, in which matter tries her most delicate combinations, but also her most transitory?

The materialist may say so, and make man a docile slave, a miserable plaything of the forces which move and transform the inorganic world; abasing one by one all the barriers that our pride has placed between us and the rest of the universe; but when he has made all his experiments, there is still an impenetrable mystery. Science may analyse our relations to matter, take its measures, and discover the laws which regulate the world; but in every phenomenon, humble as it may be, two ideas present themselves, upon which experimental philosophy has no hold: the essence of the substance modified, and the force which provokes these modifications. The outside, the appearances, are what come under cognisance; the true and substantial reality escapes investigation. The worthy task of philosophy is to consider the particular forces whose effects are analysed as issuing from one first, eternal, necessary source of movement and centre of all action. In this point of view, created beings are the changing forms of a divine idea composed of two parts: first, the divine substance endowed with intelligence and will; the second, the material, in which our passions shew their strength. Science throws her light on the latter, whilst religion shews us the reality of those facts which rest only in the Divine thought.

LADY LIVINGSTON'S LEGACY. CHAPTER XVIII.-WHAT THE BEHEMOTH MEANT.

MAJOR RAFFINGTON was accurate in declaring that the Behemoth's invitations, like those of royalty, admitted of no denial. Indeed, Baron Swartz shared this privilege of issuing an imperative summons, not merely with Her Majesty's judges learned in the law, but also with the rank and file of that accommodating profession of which he was an ornament. Many a stately gentleman who would scarcely deign to hurry his steps indecorously to elude a mad bull, or a Hansom cabman the worse for liquor, will meekly dance attendance for days in the month, and hours in the day, at the abode of some fourth-rate usurer who renews his overdue bills at fast recurring intervals. As yet, the monarch of money-lenders had treated Dashwood fairly well, as Sir Frederick himself was constrained grudgingly to admit. But this very forbearance had its terrors for the insolvent baronet, who had more than once imparted in confidence to Major Raffington his opinion that this state of things was too good to last, and that the Baron was too civil by half. If I could see what he got, or what he expected to get out of me, I'd feel happier in my mind!' had been Dashwood's own words, oft repeated; and it would certainly have been a great relief to his mind had

he been able to account for the long-suffering behaviour of his acquaintance in Pitt Street. Now he was going to learn, no doubt, the motives of the Behemoth; and somehow, the idea was scarcely a pleasant one to him. So, although he would sooner have ridden at the most impracticable fence in Northamptonshire, he was early in Pitt Street on the day appointed.

The little green-liveried page came promptly to answer to the harsh beating of the rusty knocker, and Dashwood almost fancied that there was a sinister expression, as of malicious triumph, on the urchin's keen, white face, which he had never before seen there.

The anteroom in which Dashwood was ushered was well known to him-a mere closet, as far as space was concerned, but sumptuously furnished, in silk velvet and maple-wood, with some French toys, clock and vases of a fantastic pattern on the chimney-piece, and a few gaudily coloured pictures, which some of those who inspected them honestly preferred to the dusky Old Masters in the chamber of reception, on the walls. The partywall which divided this small room from the hall of audience was thin, so that it was possible to hear much that was said in the larger apartment, if only the tones of those conversing there were raised above a low conventional pitch. Such was the case now.

'I do implore you, sir, really implore you, not to be so hard with me,' said a voice tremulous with emotion; the voice-so Dashwood readily conjectured-of a man advanced in years. What you ask for would be ruin, positive ruin. I should have to withdraw my youngest son-as good and studious a lad as ever lived-from the university, and to blight his prospects, because of his brother's extravagance.'

Then succeeded the bland, cooing accents of the Baron, quite undistinguishable, so far as words went, but apparently employed in a gentle monotone of polite remonstrance.

"The boy has paid you hundreds already!' broke in the voice again, interest, charges, and the rest of it. If only you knew, sir, with what a pang of regret I decided myself to make you this final offer of the two thousand pounds, his sister's little fortune, and how poor and straitened we all are, I think that in mercy you would not 'And then again was heard the Baron's soft rejoinder, a little louder this time, and almost immediately afterwards the bell rang; and as the disappointed suppliant withdrew, the page announced to Sir Frederick that the Baron was ready to receive him. Not greatly inspirited by what he had overheard, Dashwood complied with the summons.

The Behemoth was in his accustomed place, his several packets of carefully arranged papers within reach, and he rose to greet the baronet with his usual air of easy courtesy. No one, to look at him, would have imagined that he had been one of the interlocutors in such a conversation as that of which Dashwood had listened to a portion, so perfectly calm and unruffled was the aspect which he presented.

Sir Frederick,' said the Baron, as soon as his visitor was seated opposite to him, our relations to one another have been, up to this time, of a very pleasant description. I have had the happiness to render some slight services to you, and there has been no difficulty as to the trifling

formalities which I have proposed for your signature. This memorandum will shew you how we stand, and in what sums you are indebted to me.' And so saying he handed a balance-sheet to Dashwood, who took it with manifest reluctance, and ran his eye hastily over the figures.

'I suppose it's all right: indeed I'm sure it is,' he answered, half sullenly.

'It is, as you say, all right,' rejoined the smiling Baron; the vouchers are here, of course, for I do not let paper, with signatures so valuable as yours, pass out of my own possession: you may rely on the correctness of that statement. The sum-total has grown, you perceive, to really quite an imposing amount; has it not?'

Why, yes,' said Dashwood ruefully; it is a lump of money. You are not in a hurry for it back again, I hope, Baron?'

'Not in a hurry; certainly not; I never am in that,' said his host, as he laid his plump white hand upon the green morocco of the writing-table, and slowly twisted his signet-ring; but I like to keep things orderly, and to see my way. I have had Mr Longtick here; that is no novelty, for many of his customers are clients of mine, and he has been talking very much to me about you.'

'About me! and why?' asked Dashwood, whose heart throbbed quick and hard.

'Or, perhaps, rather about the money you owe him, and the various methods to which you have resorted for staving off the day of payment,' explained the Behemoth. I am afraid you have not quite kept faith with me, Sir Frederick.'

'What do you mean?' asked Dashwood, flushing to the roots of his hair, and smoothing back his heavy moustache. Bad as he was, and low as he had fallen, a charge of falsehood made directly to his face did rouse in him some spirit of manliness. The Behemoth waved his white hand. I mean, he said quietly, 'and you must pardon a poor foreigner who speaks your language imperfectly, that I find there are discrepancies between the documents signed by you to content Longtick and Sons, and certain assurances which you gave me when first I had the gratification to make your acquaintance. It appears'-and here he fluttered over first one sheet of paper, and then another6 that you have signed bills, bonds, and so on, for the firm in question, although your memory did not remind you of the circumstance at the period of our earliest dealings, and that you have signed others since.'

'I never pretended,' said Dashwood boldly, 'to remember all I had ever done, or thoroughly to understand my own affairs. I told you, I think, that I owed a heavy bill to those infernal tailors.'

'Yes, my good sir; but there are bills and bills. These people have lodged a detainer, or caveat, or whatever is the word in your insular law, against the price of your commission,' returned Swartz, tapping his spotless teeth with a paper-knife; and had all sorts of other liens upon your property. Well, I'm not in the least angry with you for little inaccuracies of that sort. My own experience shews me that, of ten men in difficulties, nine understate their debts. I have no right to expect you to be an exception to the rule. But Simon Longtick said he could put an end to your career; "Snuff you out" (forgive my repeating an expression so coarse) was the word, and I saw no reason to doubt it. Well, Sir Frederick ?'

Sir Frederick said nothing, however, but sat scowling and silent. It was coming then, was it? The gaunt presence of the wolf that had whined and snarled around his door so long was upon him at last-the wolf that besets the domestic castle of many a worthier Englishman than he, and whose name is Ruin! Could not this grinning Jew hunks (it was thus irreverently that he now thought of the fresh-faced smiling Baron) get his writ of fieri facias, put in his bill of sale, and have done with it? It may be doubted if the baronet had ever heard of the typical negro whose protest has become proverbial, but at that moment his feelings must have been identical with those of that coloured person. The combination of present 'preachee' with future 'floggee' was almost intolerable. There was balm, however, in the next words of the Behemoth. 'Well,' said that amiable capitalist, leaning back in his chair, after vainly waiting for Dashwood's reply, it has never been agreeable to me to hear of a friend of mine on whom the extinguishing process can be performed, except by myself, and so, after a little discussion, Mr Simon and I came to terms. You owe nothing, now, to Longtick and Sons. A glance at these papers'-offering them as if they had been something good to eat will convince you that your liabilities have changed hands, and that I am now, with some exceptions as to bookdebts, your sole creditor.'

Dashwood seemed to breathe more freely as he heard this. It was inconceivable that the Baron should have incurred such heavy expense as a mere preliminary to setting into action the machinery of the law against his needy debtor. And he was rid, at least, of one tyrant, that insufferable tailor, whose memory was tenacious of many a bygone insolence, and who found revenge to be a toothsome morsel when the tables were turned upon a member of the Gilded Youth by ministering to whose weakness he fattened. At anyrate, the Baron could have no rankling grudge, no personal animosity, against one who had never made him the butt of clumsy lightcavalry wit, or rated him for lack of punctuality in sending home the new dress-coat without which the finest rout was weariness to the budding subaltern.

Swartz, as he sat opposite to Sir Frederick, read his client's thoughts as easily as a practised Órientalist extracts the pith from a page of flowery Persian poetry or of crabbed Talmudical lore. He was in aspect not at all like the Mephistopheles of Goethe, but such sorry Fausts as came in his way he could plumb to the very bottom of their shallow natures. After a brief pause, he went on : 'Of course, Sir Frederick, a man of the world like yourself cannot suppose that what I have done was prompted entirely by a desire to relieve you from embarrassments. I never professed to be disinterested. I should very much prefer to do business with you in our old pleasant style, on velvet, as it were; but in justice to myself, I must not neglect to recoup myself the considerable outlay already incurred. Why don't you marry, Sir Frederick?'

This last question was propounded in precisely the same tone of semi-paternal benevolence as that in which a wealthy uncle might have put it while passing the claret jug to a wild young nephew, for whose reformation a family council had recommended the panacea of matrimony.

Sir Frederick started and reddened, but not so much as before. 'I have other things than

marriage to think of,' he said, almost sheepishly; and then added: 'besides, it's not so easy for a broken-down beggar like myself.'

'Perhaps not, Sir Frederick; and yet it would be an experiment worth trying,' said the Behemoth, with his imperturbable good-humour. 'I will put a case hypothetically. We can imagine a gentleman of your rank and antecedents, unfortunately very much involved, but whose good stars have given him a compensation in the shape of a young cousin, very pretty, amiable, and easily managed, and who is notoriously the heiress of a very rich and childless old lady of rank. We can fancy, also, that this young cousin is of a sensitive spirit and truthful nature-such things are-and feels herself bound by a promise to marry, obtained from her by'

'Are you a witch, or what?' cried Dashwood, jumping from his chair. 'I mean,' he made haste to say, how on earth did you'

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'Did I know that?' rejoined the Jew. Excuse me if I complete your sentence. My very dear sir, it is a part of my business to know something about the past life of those with whom I deal. Little birds whisper in my ear-the queerest things. By-the-bye, that was a fortunate accident that made you heir to the baronetcy-about the poor little boy, I mean.' 'Fortunate, do you call it? I don't say that myself,' answered Dashwood, with a slight change of colour-this time from red to pale.

'Perhaps not,' said the Baron airily; 'butforgive the apparent want of feeling in my remark -you must have thought it. They do so, even in the best families. When old Lord Crustham (what port he had, and what a temper!) was taken with his last fatal attack of apoplexy, Tom Crumpwise, the eldest son, happened, for a wonder, to be in the house at Crustham, to give, or sell, his signature for cutting off the entail of some portion of the property. Tom and his noble papa were not on what is called good terms, the heir leading a scrambling life in London on the strength of postobits; and the owner manifesting some desire to knock his son down with his gouty trutch, or to fling footstools at him, when they did meet. However, in so urgent a case as this, of course filial duty prevailed, and the Honourable Tom sent off a mounted groom to gallop for Dr Flebotham, the nearest medical man. The horse which the servant took was a spavined brute-they had the stable in a wretched state at Crustham, at that time; it is better now-which fell lame on the macadamised road; and, to cut short a long story, when the doctor did come, he might as well have brought the undertaker along with him. "I sat watching at the window," Tom said to me when we settled scores, as he described his sensations while the old lord lay battling feebly between life and death, "and I felt it was a race against time." And so it was.'

Dashwood made no comment on this agreeable anecdote, and the Behemoth lightly glided from the subject. Why, as I said before, not marry?' asked he again.

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If you know so much, you must know more,' was the reply. 'Lady Livingston never liked me. She has been a trifle more civil since I came home from Canada than ever she was before; but for some short time past I have met black looks whenever I go down to that dreary jail of hers; and as for her approval of my marriage with Alice'

'If I take so much risk on myself,' burst in the Baron, in a higher key, as he laid his forefinger on the papers, 'you might be less faint-hearted. What! king, queen, and as many trump cards as you could wish for, dealt to you, and fear to play! My experience tells me that the young generally get the better of the old, nowadays, and you have the young lady for a sure, if reluctant, ally already. It may be that the dowager would prefer to select another husband for Miss Fleming, another master for Heavitree Hall. What of that! Press your advantage; marry your cousin, without a penny, if need be; and see if yonder doting old dame disinherits her darling because she has wedded a prodigal like yourself." As he ceased speaking, he touched a spring in the table before him, and out flew a secret drawer, from which he selected two or three slim-looking documents neatly tied with red tape, and formally endorsed. You will be so kind, Sir Frederick,' he said, 'as to sign this, having reference to the purchase-money of your commission; and this, which gives me a lien on certain securities that belonged to Sir George, your grandfather, and of which you gave me a list at the commencement of our dealings. In return, here are two hundred pounds in money, and your dishonoured acceptances redeemed from Longtick and Sons. Mind, you only mortgage your securities, and, on certain terms, can redeem them. If you would like your solicitor to look over these papersAh, well! You would not, I think, have been informed that the conditions were too onerous, under the circumstances. Here is another bond, somewhat more speculative: it engages you, under heavy forfeiture, to repay to Jacob, Baron Swartz, for value received, within twelve calendar months of the decease of the Dowager Lady Livingston, sixteen thousand pounds sterling. You see I count very much on your success with Miss Fleming.'

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For a while Dashwood demurred. The magnitude of the sum staggered him somewhat. more than three years' rental of the Heavitree property,' he blurted out.

Yes, my dear sir; but you forget the sum in the funds, in those delicious English three per cents, the stability of which we aliens envy,' said the Baron. It is a point on which I admit of no compromise. Come, sir, peace or war? Will you sign, or shall I ring the bell, and decline further negotiations except through Mr Levi of Cursitor Street? I thought so. Here is a pen.' And Dashwood signed his name wherever the Behemoth's finger pointed.

Now, dear friend,' said the money-lender, 'a bit of advice at parting. Press your suit. Remember your English adage, that faint heart never won fair lady. And now, good-bye, Sir Frederick, and good-luck to your wooing!'

CHAPTER XIX.-MR GOODEVE'S RETURN HOME.

THE senior partner in the very eminent firm of Goodeve and Glegg was, it has been previously mentioned, entering on a period of intellectual decadence, and by no means as good a man of business as he had been. No expert would, of course, be unreasonable enough to expect those family solicitors whom all ladies regard as mines and marvels of legal learning, to know much of law. They do know, however, all sorts of things that it is very useful to know-when terms begin and

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