the lighted ball–room; but he did not delay to
glance at the scene.

"So I am going away," he said to himself,
"richer by ten pounds and my mother's
promise. Stop, though! There's the sprig of
myrtle. I must not forget or lose the
unconscious gift of the great heiress. I wish I had
asked nurse what sort of girl she is. I might
have taken time to do that. It's not so cold as
it was." He had been warmed and fed, and his
spirits had risen. It did not take much to raise
George Dallas's spirits, even now when the
excesses of his wasted life were beginning to tell
upon him. "I feel quite strong again. The
night is lighter; the village must be a wretched
place. I have a great mind to push on to
Amherst. It's only seven miles, and Carruthers
can't hear that I have been there; but he
might hear of me at the village, and bother my
mother about it."

He took his way down the avenue and
reached the gate, which lay open. One feeble
light twinkled from the upper window of the
gate lodge. Bulger and family had retired to
rest, the excitement of the arrivals being over;
and Bulger would leave the gate to take care of
itself until morning. Unquestioned, unseen,
George Dallas left Poynings, and, turning to
the right under the park wall, set forth at a
steady pace towards Amherst.

The town of Amherst is very much like the
other towns in that part of the country. Close
by the railway station lies the Railway Tavern,
snug and comfortable, with a "quick draught"
of home–brewed ale and bitter beer, thanks
to the powers of suction of porters, guards,
and admiring friends of both, who vent their
admiration in "standing glasses round." Not
a little of its custom does the Railway Tavern
owe to that small plot of waste ground in front
of it, where, even on this desolate night, you
might trace the magic circle left by the "ring"
of Signor Quagliasco's Mammoth Circus on its
visit last autumn, and the holes for the pole and
tent–pegs, and the most recent ruts on which
were left by the wheels of the cart of the
travelling photographer who "took" the entire
town at Christmas, and, in addition to the
photograph, presented each sitter with a blue
card embossed with a scarlet robin bearing in
its mouth the legend, "A happy new year to
you." Then villas; Mr. Cobb's, the corn–
chandler and coal merchant, with a speckled
imitation–granite porch, white and black, as if
it had been daubed with a mixture of its owner's
flour and coal–dust; Mr. Lawson's, the
attorney, with a big brass plate on its outer gate,
and two stone pine–apples flanking the entrance;
Mr. Charlton Biggs's, the hop–merchant, in all
the gentility of a little chaise–house leaning
against the street door, approached by a little
carriage–drive so narrow that the pony had
never yet walked up it properly, but had always
been ignominiously "backed" into its tiny
home. Then the outskirts of the town; the
Independent Chapel, very square, very red–
faced, and very compact, not to say sat upon;
the Literary Institute, with more green damp
on its stuccoed walls than had been originally
intended by its architect, and with fragmentary
bills of "Mr. Lens's Starry Carpet, or the
Heavens at a Glance," fluttering in the night
wind from its portico. Merton House comes
next, formerly the stronghold of the Merton–
Mertons, the great Kentish family, now Mr.
Bompas's Classical and Commercial Academy,
with a full view of the white dimity bedsteads
through the open window, and with "Old
Bompas's Blaggards" inscribed—by the boys
of the National School, with whom the grand
Bompasians waged constant warfare—on the
door–post. The commencement of the town, a
mouldly old bay–windowed shop, known to Mr.
Bompas's boys as "Mother Jennings's," and as
the repository of "tuck," said tuck consisting
of stale buns, hardbake, "all sorts," toffee,
treacle, new rolls, sugar mutton–chops elegantly
painted and gilt, sugar rum and gin bottles,
whipcord, pegtops, and marbles; then
Bullenger's, apparently a small ironmonger's, but
in reality another lure for the money of
Bompas's boys, for in a parlour behind his back
shop Bullenger vended fireworks and half–
crown detonating pistols, catapults, and cross–
bows, and all sorts of such–like instruments
dear to predatory boys. Then the ordinary lot
of butchers, bakers, tailors, hosiers, grocers,
chemists (Mr. Hotten, member of the Pharmaceutical
Society of Great Britain, also strongly
reliant on Bompas's custom for cigars and
hair–oil for the big boys, and bath–pipe and
liquorice for the little ones), and then the
police–station  the old grey church, with its
square ivy–covered tower, its billowy graves and
its half–obliterated sun–dial over the porch, and
then the fresh green fields again.

All these particulars George Dallas noted in
the morning, when, having early left the bed he
had procured at the inn, he called in at the
station and learned from the friendly porter,
who was again engaged in mending his shoes
with tin and tacks, when the next train would
start for London, and where he could find a
tailor's shop, walked briskly through the little
town, with feelings very different to those
which had possessed him on his first arrival at
the Amherst station. Now, his step was free
and light, he carried his head erect, and though
he occasionally shivered as the cold wind came
sweeping over the downs and gave him a sharp
unfriendly nip as it hurried by him in its
progress to the sea, he bore the insult with
tolerable fortitude, and seemed to derive
immediate comfort from plunging his hand into his
trousers–pocket, where lay the ten–pound note
he had received from his mother. It was
there, stiff and crisp to his touch. He had
taken it out and looked at it twice or thrice
on the road, but he could not do that now in
the town; he must content himself with touching
it, and the crinkling sound was music in
his ear; he had been so long without money,
that he derived the keenest pleasure from the
possession of this actual tangible sum, and felt