HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTER I. HIGH ART.

As Saxon's cab turned in at the gates of the
South-Western Railway station, Mr. William
Trefalden, who chanced to be in the occupation
of a very similar Hansom, was driving rapidly
down the Waterloo-road. The two vehicles
with their unsuspecting occupants had been
almost side by side on Waterloo Bridge, and,
by one of those curious coincidences—which
happen still oftener in real life than in fiction,
the one cousin was going down into Surrey as
the honoured guest of Lady Castletowers, while
the other was rattling over to Camberwell
in search of her ladyship's disinherited half-
sister.

"Six, Brudenell Terrace."

Mr. Trefalden took the card from his pocket-
book, and read the address over once or twice.
It was the same card that Miss Rivière had
given to Saxon, and which Saxon had entrusted
to the lawyer's keeping a couple of hours
before. Mr. Trefalden was a prompt- man of
business, and was showing himself to be, in the
present instance, better than his word. He had
promised to act for his young kinsman in this
matter; but he had not promised to set about
the task that same afternoon. Yet here he was
with his face already turned southwards, and
Miss Rivière's address in his hand.

The fact was, that Mr. Trefalden took more
interest in this piece of family history than he had
chosen to express, and was bent on learning all
that might be learnt about the Rivières without
an hour's unnecessary delay. No man better
appreciated the value of a family secret. There
might, it is true, be nothing very precious in
this particular specimen; but then one could
never tell what might, or might not, be useful
hereafter. At all events, Mr. Trefalden was
not slow to see his way to possible advantages;
and though he had asked time for consideration
of what it might be best to do, he had half a
dozen schemes outlined in his mind before
Saxon left the office. Mr. Trefalden's plans
seldom needed much elaboration. They sprang
from his fertile brain like Minerva from the
head of Zeus, armed at all points, and ready for
the field.

Leaning back thoughtfully, then, with folded
arms, and a cigar in his mouth, Mr. Trefalden
drove past the Obelisk and the Elephant and
Castle, and plunged into the very heart of that
dreary suburban district which might with
much propriety be called by the general name
of Transpontia. Then, dismissing his cab at a
convenient point, he proceeded in search of
Brudenell Terrace on foot.

Transpontia is a district beset with
difficulties to the inexperienced explorer. There
dust, dissent, and dulness reign supreme. The
air is pervaded by a faint odour of universal
brick-field. The early muffin-bell is audible at
incredible hours of the day. Files of shabby-
genteel tenements, and dismal slips of parched
front-garden, follow and do resemble each other
with a bewildering monotony that extends for
long miles in every direction, and is only
interrupted here and there by a gorgeous gin-
palace, or a depressing patch of open ground,
facetiously called a " green," or a " common."
Of enormous extent, and dreary sameness, the
topography of Transpontia is necessarily of the
vaguest character.

Mr. Trefalden was, however, too good a
Londoner to be greatly baffled by the intricacies
of any metropolitan neighbourhood. He pursued
his way with a Londoner's instinct, and, after
traversing a few small squares and by-streets,
found himself presently in face of Brudenell
Terrace.

It was a very melancholy terrace, built
according to the strictest lodging-house order of
architecture, elevated some four feet above the
level of the street, and approached by a
dilapidated flight of stone steps at each extremity. It
consisted of four-and-twenty dingy, eight-roomed
houses, in one or other of which, take them at
what season of the year one might, there was
certain to be either a sale or a removal going
forward. In conjunction with the inevitable van,
or piece of stair-carpeting, might also be found
the equally inevitable street organ—that "most
miraculous organ," which can no more be
silenced than the voice of murder itself; and
which in Transpontia hath its chosen home.
The oldest inhabitant of Brudenell Terrace
confessed to never having known the hour of
any day (except Sunday) when some interesting
native of Parma or Lucca was not to be heard
grinding his slow length along from number
one to number twenty-eight. On the present