"I don't quite understand you. The fellow
you are so good as to assign me as a friend has
been in fifty blackguard messes within these two
years; and, for aught I know, may be at this
moment in Newgate."

"For swindling your aunt?"

"Aunt again! " "What do you mean, old
fellow? Yes, he did humbug my poor aunt, to
some extent, I fear. Perhaps that was one reason
for his gradually relieving me of his
acquaintance. But what you have said has
suggested something to me. Will you help me to
find out this dear aunt of mine, of whom you
speak so often?"

"You don't know? You did not receive
her letter?"

"Letter! When? Never," said Fred,
bewildered.

"Then, as you're a man, Freddy, you don't
know that Miss Sympleson is——"

"What?"

"Ruined. Starving!"

"St— starving," the blood rushed to his
forehead.

"Starving, but for the charity of strangers."

"What—what is this?" he gasped.

I told him all.

He was much moved, while I was speaking,
but calm as usual, towards the end. When I
had finished, he got up, and selecting a tin box
from several on a shelf, placed it before him
on the table. It was lettered " M. S. S."

"I am going to tell you a story," he said.

"From those manuscripts?" I asked,
uneasily, for the box was large and deep.

"They are not manuscripts," said Freddy.
"These are my aunt's initials—Mary Scrymgeour
Sympleson. Don't grumble, old fellow.
If you had listened to something I was on the
point of saying, in these chambers, five years
ago, both of us might have been spared some
pain. Listen.

"More than twenty years ago, that respectable
miscreant, Suckham Drye, first established
over my aunt an influence it has been the task
of my life to counteract. Overcome it I could
not. All that remained to me was to neutralise,
as far as might be, the evil it might occasion.
Experience convinced me that, so long as any
means remained at her command, my aunt would
be persuadable to use them in accordance with
the advice of this man, Drye, in preference to
any other human being. She hated the man, as
far as so sweet a nature might—but she had an
almost fanatical reliance on his financial
judgment, and adopted his recommendations like
the decrees of fate.

"There seemed but one course to follow. I
adopted it. Her habit of making me pecuniary
presents suggested my plan. I accepted,
courted them in every possible manner— I
forced myself to falsehood. In short, I stopped
at nothing, hoping so to diminish my aunt's
resources, that, in merest prudence, she would
refrain from further speculation. I obtained—
rescued, I may call it—in all, let me see,
now——"

He opened the box, and took out a small
book.

"Yes; just so. Thirty-two thousand
pounds——"

"Thirty-two thousand——"

"With the interest—yes. Thus stands the
account: I received from her, in all, twenty-
five thousand pounds sterling. Every shilling,
the accruing interest also, has been well
invested, and the lady you describe as ruined and
starving (my poor kind soul!) is richer than she
was previous to her acquaintance with Suckham
Drye. She has sixteen hundred a year,
sir, and five hundred and fifty pounds balance
unemployed, which shall be placed to an account
that shall be opened in her name, at Coutts's,
this day."

"My dear Freddy——"

"Yes— dear Freddy! Now, old boy, as
penalty for thinking your friend could be such
a scoundrel, you shall do me a service."

"Name it, and see."

"Go at once to my dear aunt—I see you
know where she is—and explain to her,
carefully and gently, all that has passed. Take her
papers with you, and my love and blessing
beside. That miscreant, Drye, deceived me. He
promised—you heard him—to spare her in the
matter of the Submarine swindle, and it was
that that ruined her. Happily, I can repay him.
He's a witness for our opponents in a case in
which I am retained. If I don't turn the
villain inside out, may I never wear horsehair
again!"

Freddy kept his word. Mr. Suckham Drye,
forced to relate his own biography before a
crowded court, compromised himself so seriously,
that, save in the criminal dock, he is not likely
to be seen again in public.

Kind Miss Sympleson is well and happy. She
gives less advice than formerly, and though
open-handed as ever, takes such reasonable care
of her money, that Freddy is likely to receive
back, in due time, more than the fortune he
saved, at some cost of conscience, from the
clutches of Mr. Suckham Drye.

Stitched in a cover, price Fourpence,
MUGBY JUNCTION.
THE EXTRA NUMBER FOR CHRISTMAS.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S READINGS.
MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read at Edinburgh on Friday
the 22nd, and Saturday the 23rd (this day); at St.
James's Hall, London, on Tuesday the 26th; at York
on Thursday the 28th of February; at Bradford on Friday
the 1st of March; at Newcastle on Monday the 4th and
Tuesday the 5th; and at St. James's Hall, London, on
Tuesday the 12th of March.