matter, sickening of his speculation, told the
threadbare gentlemen that he must have done
with it and them, unless indeed they could
turn up some poor hardworking devil of a
drudge who would work the thing for pure
nothing, and chance of a reputation. Not so
long after then, the two threadbare gentlemen
came one morning to Balcombe Street,
and there found such a drudge, who took the
business with a sort of joy and eager hope.
No remuneration, but better full hands than
idle expectancy. "We shall send you up the
papers in the evening," said the threadbare
gentlemen at departing. And accordingly,
that evening there came up a cab, filled with
old carpet-bags and bundles, in which again
were reams of old yellow dried parchments,
being the papers in the matter, or Surrebutter
and his fellows come on a visit.

IV.

THERE was some one living at the top of
the house, in a dark nook which she had
christened queerly Ravens' Roost; and here,
after taking her day's share of railing, she
would retire and write in a log or day-book.
It was the log of the quiet child, kept fast
under lock and key, who looked to all things
shrewdly, but with an especial eye to the
dun chamber. What she wrote was all to
the same tune and sing-song.

"I hate, I hate," began the log every day,
dating from Ravens' Roost, "and I like to
hate. It will keep me alive, while undergoing
penal servitude, until I turn old and
grey, and he run stone blind, which he will
as sure as he will die—poor, wretched, noble,
hateful creature! I should like to have the
leading of him about, though I know he
would rather fancy Minx Conalore. Minx
Conalore would lead him so gingerly! O the
poor, poor soul: pray, pray that his eyes be
kept to him!"

V.

THE papers in the matter of Whichelo's
Trusts were spread out before him at night,
covering the tables, and the floor, and old
cabinets. They looked down at him from
tops of cupboards, waiting their turn. They
were tied up, as it were, with miles of red
tape; and such as were written out on great
paper folios, each furnished with a substantial
vellum jacket. There were some made up
like small linen bales, and weighing many,
many pounds. Surprising, indeed, what a
sum the whole would have brought in if put
up to auction as waste paper! By the light
of a miserable candle he was now working
through a vast prairie; which was no other
than the great deed of trust itself, sweetly
engrossed, wherein were numberless other
deeds recited and referred to. And as he
bent his head close to the prairie and moved
the light nearer, he felt his eyes sink in from
weakness, as though about to be shut for
ever. Two burning arrows were piercing into
his brain, and he fell back in his chair,
covering up his face. "O, I must give up," he
said aloud. "I cannot go on. It is only left
for me to become blind. And, after that,
mad. Fitting end to all!" Again he bent
forward his head to the dim light and entered
on the prairie; but with the same profit.
"This is terrible," he said aloud. "If I had
only some help on which to lean: some one
to do the hodman's work, and make abstracts,
and so spare these eyes!" He thought for
a moment, and went on. "Conalore has
turned proud of late. She has scorn for such
mean creatures as I. A just scorn. I am
a mean, poor-souled drudge, nothing else.
O, everything is weariness: everything!"

There was some one listening at the door:
some one that had come down on tiptoe:
past the chief justice's room, down all the
way from the Ravens' Roost. The well-
staircase had not given so much as a creak:
for she was light of person, and lighter of
foot. Some one had heard all those outspoken
words, and had gone away softly but
with secret rejoicing.

When he was gone to chambers next day
she came down again from the Ravens' Roost,
and stole privately into the dun room. She
stood solitary among the papers of the great
cause, or what might be rather called the
dried bones of it. The room was as a vault
full of those dried bones, lying here and
there, and up and down. Prue had strange
powers of thought, the clearest of heads;
brain machinery that could winnow law, or
even coarser material. After all, this should
not be such terrible caviare to the crowd.
Suitors, if they were let, or were a degree less
lazy, might walk in the steps of their own
cause, conveniently enough. Those deeds,
awful of aspect, are not altogether palimpsests.

So Prue Rhode drew near to the mummy-
in-chief, lying out on the table, and set herself
resolutely to it. She was now entering on the
prairie with terrible impediment, at first, by
brush and brake, and jungle, impenetrable.
It seemed all Hebrew, Chaldaic, Sanscrit
moulded together. She turned it over
from front to back. Heavy enough it
was. There was engrossed invoice of deeds
alluded to within. Conveyance A of the
year seventeen hundred and sixty, conveyance
B of the year seventeen hundred and ninety-
seven, and the rest, which documents must,
in all likelihood, be hard by, and true enough.
Here they were to the right, all tied up
together. Here was conveyance of seventeen
hundred and sixty, marked A at the top.
There were the steps in the cause on the left,
masters rulings and the like, of prodigious
length. Taking up which, she proceeded to
make her way through without much hardship,
working on for some two hours or so,
and then wrote out short compendium or
abstract. Then she went away for a turn or
so of railing with Martha Daxe, then stole
back and did more work.