on me now. You shall have the very first cheque

I draw on our bank. There. A noble
forequarter there — real prime meat," he added,
touching it here and there with his stick. " Put
it aside for me, will you, Waterman? Have it
weighed. Just three days' more keeping, and it
will be in noble order for cutting. Ah, Mr.
Waterman, do we ever think where all good
blessings come from?"

Mr. Waterman, chopping and dividing joints
with extraordinary neatness with his scimitar,
said half aside to his customer, "There's your
bill, Mr. Tilney; it's not got long to run; so
you'll look to it. No quarter this time, you
know." And the cutlass went home
significantly into the surgical-looking sheath.

Tilney went from Waterman to the gorgeous
grocer, where there was a "pass-book" with
bewildering entries, crowded with all the
omnigenous items which Mr. Tilney had found
more convenient to purchase at the one house.
To the chief of this establishment Mr. Tilney
spoke in the same cheerful tone of " drawing
his first cheque" in his favour.

CHAPTER XIII. NORBURY, TUB LAY CANON.

NORBURY was a short, bald-headed lay canon
of the cathedral, of cheerful and jovial habits,
on which a narrow stipend, with a wife and
six children, were no drag. This gentleman
trolled a stave, and was famous for intoning
a kind of hunting melody, called When
AURORA atop of the Morning, in a lusty and
boisterous tenor, which gave great delight
to the squires and yeomen, and the loose
gentlemen who lived principally with that
noble animal the horse. On account of these
tastes, Mr. Norbury was not at all in favour
with the dean and magnates of the cathedral;
at whom though, as he often said plainly
"over a tumbler," he could " snap his fingers."
Respect, however, for the cloth was a restraint
on his language; but with regard to Fugle, and
one or two more of subservient habits, and
whom he forcibly called the " Dean's Lick-
spittles," he gave himself full indulgence. That
"toad-eater Fugle, with his squeaking penny-
trumpet voice. It's disgusting to see the way
he grovels before that Topham. I should be
ashamed to do it." Mr. Tilney liked Norbury' s
company; for, as he said, he came of a " good
stock, and the gentlemen were dying out of the
country like a sheep rot." A cousin of the canon's,
a Dick or Tom Norbury, had once or twice been
on guard at the palace, and Lady Mary Norbury
had apartments at Hampton Court. This,
according to Mr. Tilney, explained the whole thing.
It must be said, however, that during the dean's
term of residence he was not so conspicuously
friendly to the canon, who was held more or less
in the light of a black sheep. The black sheep
was never asked to Doctor Topham's nor the
dean's parties, the reason for which the dean gave
with great candour. "He was not the sort of
person," he said, " you could well have at your
house. And between you and me, I mean to
weed our body of such Scandals on the very first
opportunity."

No one had less to do with this exclusion from
the dean's parties than did the wife of the
Scandal; a gentle, contented creature, whose
aim in life was to bring her children securely
and happily into the world, give them to eat
and drink, and keep them clean and " tidy."
Though herself neat and " tidy," still she could
not keep away from the little canon's " hutch"
the air of squalor which the undue swarming of
children always brings. Her husband, however,
was always kind, though often desponding,
especially of some evenings when he sat at home, and
when there was no festivity abroad, and when
he tried to be domestic, but with very poor
success. There was a friend who had a snug little
billiard-table in a back-room, and this was a
great temptation, and the provokingly thirsty
character of the game was remedied by glistening
tumblers upon the chimney-piece opposite, from
which each player, as he passed, took a friendly
sip. Every one said Norbury was excellent
company, "a good creature at the bottom;"
with, " it was a pity he had chosen that line,
you know;" and an additional pity that the man
was " so infested" with children. Still he led
this cheerful life; and strangers who came to
the cathedral, and saw his shiny bald head and
tawny hair in the ranks of the holy men in the
choir, lifting up their voices to praise their Maker,
thought he must be every bit as seraphic as
Fugle and the other divine and white-robed
songsters. But they did not know, nor did he
himself know, that Doctor Topham was busy
trying to get "that Scandal" out of their
body.

Mr. Tilney was now at the green door with a
knocker made of brass knobs, where his friend
Norbury lived. That ecclesiastic looked over
the banisters in his shirt-sleeves, and many
smaller heads were seen about his knees, and
called out to him that he would be down in a
minute. The sickly Mrs. Norbury came out to
him, embossed all over with children. For she
had one in her arms, a couple lay in ambuscade
behind her skirt, and about herself, poor patient
lady, there was the habitual outspeaking air as
of yet more children.

"My dear madam," said Mr. Tilney, "you
have no doubt heard? Yes; I thought so. It
seems they have put me over the gold and silver
and their notes. 1 hope Heaven will give me the
proper judgment to discharge this great trust.
And now, my dear madam," he added kindly,
"we shall find means to do something for our
friend up there. Directors and that sort of thing,
you know, find a hundred ways. When there
is a stream of money going, why shouldn't some
of it find its way in here? Why not, now?"

Why not, indeed! as in truth that poor pale-
cheeked, " washed out" woman had been thinking
these many years back.

"Oh, Mr. Tilnev," she said, "if we had only
a little! Charles has so many mouths to feed!
And there is the dean so cruelly ' down' on him.
There was a stall vacant, and though it's his