an ever-increasing difficulty in commanding my
thoughts, or fixing them upon the subject which
had engrossed them all day. I had not tasted
food for twenty-four hours, nor closed my eyes
for thirty-six, while, during the whole of the
time, my nervous system had been on full strain.

Presently, the summons came, and I was
ushered, first, into the inner apartment. There
sat five gentlemen round a table, which was
strewed with a number of documents. There
were the Secretary of State, whom we had seen
in the morning, our secretary, and Mr.
Huntingdon; the fourth was a fine-looking man,
whom I afterwards knew to be the Premier;
the fifth I recognised as our great chief, the
Postmaster-General. It was an august
assemblage to me, and I bowed low; but my head
was dizzy, and my throat parched.

"Mr. Wilcox," said our secretary, "you will
tell these gentlemen again, the circumstances of
the loss you reported to me this morning."

I laid my hand upon the back of a chair to
steady myself, and went through the narration
for the third time, passing over sundry remarks
made by myself to the young lady. That done,
I added the account of my expedition to Eaton,
and the certainty at which I had arrived that
my fellow-traveller was not the person she
represented herself to be. After which, I inquired
with indescribable anxiety if Mr. Huntingdon's
order were a forgery?

"I cannot tell, Mr. Wilcox," said that gentleman,
taking the order into his hands, and regarding
it with an air of extreme perplexity. " I
could have sworn it was mine, had it been attached
to any other document. I think Forbes's
handwriting is not so well imitated. But it is the
very ink I use, and mine is a peculiar signature."

It was a very peculiar and old-fashioned
signature, with a flourish underneath it not unlike
a whip-handle, with the lash caught round it in
the middle; but that did not make it the more
difficult to forge, as I humbly suggested. Mr.
Huntingdon wrote his name upon a paper, and
two or three of the gentlemen tried to imitate
the flourish, but vainly. They gave it up with
a smile upon their grave faces.

"You have been careful not to let a hint of
this matter drop from you, Mr. Wilcox?" said
the Postmaster-General.

"Not a syllable, my lord," I answered.

"It is imperatively necessary that the secret
should be kept. You would be removed from
the temptation of telling it, if you had an
appointment in some office abroad. The packet-
agency at Alexandria is vacant, and I will have
you appointed to it at once."

It would be a good advance from my present
situation, and would doubtless prove a stepping-
stone to other and better appointments; but I
had a mother living at Fazeley, bedridden and
paralytic, who had no pleasure in existence except
having me to dwell under the same roof with her.
My head was growing more and more dizzy,
and a strange vagueness was creeping over me.

"Gentlemen," I muttered, " I have a bed-
ridden mother whom I cannot leave. I was not
to blame, gentlemen." I fancied there was a stir
and movement at the table, but my eyes were dim,
and in another second I had lost consciousness.

When I came to myself, in two or three
minutes, I. found that Mr. Huntingdon was
kneeling on the floor beside me, supporting
my head, while our secretary held a glass of
wine to my lips. I rallied as quickly as
possible, and staggered to my feet; but the
two gentlemen placed me in the chair against
which I had been leaning, and insisted upon my
finishing the wine before I tried to speak.

"I have not tasted food all day," I said,
faintly.

"Then, my good fellow, you shall go home
immediately," said the Postmaster-General;
"but be on your guard! Not a word of this
must escape you. Are you a married man?"

"No, my lord," I answered.

"So much the better," he added, smiling.
"You can keep a secret from your mother, I
dare say. We rely upon your honour."

The secretary then rang a bell, and I was
committed to the charge of the messenger
who answered it; and in a few minutes I was
being conveyed in a cab to my London lodgings.
A week afterwards, Tom Morville was sent
out to a post-office in Canada, where he settled
down, married, and is still living, perfectly
satisfied with his position, as he occasionally
informs me by letter. For myself, I remained
as I desired, in my old post as travelling-clerk
until the death of my mother, which occurred
some ten or twelve months afterwards. I was
then promoted to an appointment as a clerk in
charge, upon the first vacancy.

The business of the clerks in charge is to
take possession of any post-office in the kingdom,
upon the death or resignation of the post-
master, or when circumstances of suspicion
cause his suspension from office. My new
duties carried me three or four times into Mr.
Huntingdon's district. Though that gentleman
and I never exchanged a word with regard
to the mysterious loss in which we had both
had an innocent share, he distinguished me
with peculiar favour, and more than once invited
me to visit him at his own house. He
lived alone, having but one daughter, who
had married, somewhat against his will, one of
his clerks: the Mr. Forbes whose handwriting
had been so successfully imitated in the official
order presented to me by the self-styled Miss
Anne Clifton. (By the way, I may here mention,
though it has nothing to do with my story, that
my acquaintance with the Cliftons "had ripened
into an intimacy, which resulted in my engagement
and marriage to Mary.)

It would be beside my purpose to specify the
precise number of years which elapsed before I
was once again summoned to the secretary's
private apartment, where I found him closeted
with Mr. Huntingdon. Mr. Huntingdon shook
hands with unofficial cordiality; and then the
secretary proceeded to state the business on hand.

"Mr. Wilcox, you remember our offer to
place you in. office in Alexandria?" he said.