HALF A MILLION OF MONEY,

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTER II. ANNO DOMINI 1860.

Two persons sat together in a first-floor room
overlooking Chancery-lane. The afternoon sky
was grey, and cold, and dull; and the room was
greyer, colder, duller than the sky. Everything
about the place looked sordid and neglected.
The rain-channelled smoke of years had crusted
on the windows. The deed-boxes on the shelves
behind the door, the shabby books in the bookcase
opposite the fireplace, the yellow map that
hung over the mantelpiece, the tape-tied papers
on the table, were all thickly coated with white
dust. There was nothing fresh or bright within
those four walls, except a huge green safe with
panelled iron doors and glittering scutcheons,
fixed into a recess beside the fireplace. There
were only two old-fashioned horse-hair covered
chairs in the room. There was not even a
carpet on the floor. A more comfortless place
could scarcely be conceived beyond the walls of
a prison; and yet, perhaps, it was not more
comfortless than such places generally are.

It was the private room of William Trefalden,
Esquire, attorney-at-law, and it opened out from
the still drearier office in which his clerks were
at work. There was a clock in each room, and
an almanack on each mantelshelf. The hands of
both clocks pointed to half-past four, and the
almanacks both proclaimed that it was the
second day of March, A.D. eighteen hundred and
sixty.

The two persons sitting together in the inner
chamber were the lawyer and one of his clients.
Placed as he was with his back to the window
and his face partly shaded by his hand, Mr.
Trefalden's features were scarcely distinguishable
in the gathering gloom of the afternoon. His
client—a stout, pale man, with a forest of
iron-grey hair about his massive temples—sat
opposite, with the light full upon his face,
and his hands crossed on the knob of his
umbrella.

"I have come to talk to you, Mr. Trefalden,"
said he, " about that Castletowers mortgage."

"The Castletowers mortgage?" repeated Mr.
Trefalden.

"Yes—I think I could do better with my
money. In short, I wish to foreclose."

The lawyer shifted round a little further from
the light, and drew his hand a little lower over
his eyes.

"What better do you think you could do with
your money, Mr. Behrens?" he said, after a
moment's pause. " It is an excellent investment.
The Castletowers estate is burthened with no
other incumbrance; and what can you desire
better than five per cent secured on landed
property?"

"I have nothing to say against it, as an
investment," replied the client; "but—I prefer
something else."

Mr. Trefalden looked up with a keen,
inquiring glance.

"You are too wise a man, I am sure, Mr.
Behrens," said he, " to let yourself be tempted
by any unsafe rate of interest."

The client smiled grimly.

"You are too wise a man, I should hope, Mr.
Trefalden," rejoined he, "to suspect Oliver
Behrens of any such folly? No, the fact is that
five per cent is no longer of such importance to
me as it was seven years ago, and I have a
mind to lay out that twenty-five thousand upon
land."

"Upon land?" echoed the lawyer. " My dear
sir, it would scarcely bring you three and a half
per cent."

"I know that," replied the client. " I can
afford it."

There was another brief silence.

"You will not give notice, I suppose," said
Mr. Trefalden, quietly, "till you have seen
something which you think likely to suit you."

"I have seen something already," replied Mr.
Behrens.

"Indeed?"

"Yes; in Worcestershire—one hundred and
thirty miles from London."

"Is not that somewhat far for a man of business,
Mr. Behrens?"

"No, I have my box in Surrey, you know,
adjoining the Castletowers grounds."

"True. Have you taken any steps towards
this purchase?"

"I have given your address to the lawyers in
whose care the papers are left, and have desired
them to communicate with you upon the subject