A DARK NIGHT'S WORK.

BY THE AUTHORESS OF "MARY BARTON."
CHAPTER I.

In the county town of a certain shire there
lived (about forty years ago) one Mr. Wilkins, a
conveyancing attorney of considerable standing.

The certain shire was but a small county, and
the principal town in it contained only about
four thousand inhabitants; so in saying that Mr.
Wilkins was the principal lawyer in Hamley, I
say very little, unless I add that he transacted
all the legal business of the gentry for twenty
miles round. His grandfather had established
the connexion; his father had consolidated and
strengthened it, and, indeed, by his wise and
upright conduct, as well as by his professional skill,
had obtained for himself the position of
confidential friend to many of the surrounding families
of distinction. He visited among them in a way
which no mere lawyer had ever done before;
dined at their tables— he alone, not accompanied
by his wife, be it observed— rode to the meet
occasionally, as if by accident, although he was
as well mounted as any squire among them, and
was often persuaded (after a little coquetting
about "professional engagements," and "being
wanted at the office") to have a run with his
clients; nay, once or twice he forgot his usual
caution, was first in at the death, and rode home
with the brush. But in general he knew his
place; as his place was held to be in that aristocratic
county, and in those days. Nor let it be
supposed that he was in any way a toad-eater.
He respected himself too much for that. He
would give the most unpalatable advice, if need
were; would counsel an unsparing reduction of
expenditure to an extravagant man; would
recommend such an abatement of family pride as
paved the way for one or two happy marriages in
some instances; nay, what was the most likely
piece of conduct of all to give offence forty years
ago, he would speak up for an unjustly-used
tenant; and that with so much temperate and
well-timed wisdom and good feeling, that he more
than once gained his point. He had one son,
Edward. This boy was the secret joy and pride
of his father's heart. For himself he was not
in the least ambitious, but it did cost him a hard
struggle to acknowledge that his own business
was too lucrative and brought in too large
an income, to pass away into the hands of a
stranger, as it would do if he indulged his ambition
for his son by giving him a college education,
and making him into a barrister. This determination
on the more prudent side of the argument
took place while Edward was at Eton. The lad
had, perhaps, the largest allowance of pocket-
money of any boy at school; and he had always
looked forward to going to Christ Church along
with his fellows, the sons of the squires, his
father's employers. It was a severe mortification
to him to find that his destiny was changed, and
that he had to return to Hamley to be articled
to his father, and to assume the hereditary
subservient position to lads whom he had licked in
the playing-fields, and beaten at learning.

His father tried to compensate him for the
disappointment by every indulgence that money
could purchase. Edward's horses were even
finer than those of his father; his literary tastes
were kept up and fostered, by his father's
permission to form an extensive library, for which
purpose a noble room was added to Mr. Wilkins's
already extensive house in the suburbs of Hamley.
And after his year of legal study in London
his father sent him to make the grand tour, with
something very like carte blanche as to expenditure,
to judge from the packages which were
sent home from various parts of the Continent.

At last he came home— came back to settle as
his father's partner at Hamley. He was a son
to be proud of, and right down proud was old
Mr. Wilkins of his handsome, accomplished,
gentlemanly lad. For Edward was not one to
be spoilt by the course of indulgence he had
passed through; at least, if it had done him an
injury, the effects were at present hidden from
view. He had no vulgar vices; he was, indeed,
rather too refined for the society he was likely
to be thrown into, even supposing that society
to consist of the highest of his father's employers.
He was well read, and an artist of no mean
pretensions. Above all, "his heart was in the right
place," as his father used to observe; nothing
could exceed the deference he always showed to
his father. His mother had long been dead.

I do not know if it was Edward's own ambition
or his proud father's wishes that had led
him to attend the Hamley assemblies. I should
conjecture the latter, for Edward had of himself