رو "You were a long time about it, though, thought Balmaine, who was no great admirer of the "prop of his party," as Mr. Hardy was designated at Calder. "And it's pretty generally known now what my sentiments is," continued Saintly Sam, with much complacency, "they're them of loyalty and religion-our beloved Bible and our revered Queen, as Mr. Pyke said last Sunday and I command eighty votes in this 'ere borough. You uphold 'em, Mr. Balmaine, and keep the Sabbath, and you'll prosper. It is to keeping the Sabbath as I owe my success in life more than to owt else, I do believe. And we shall always take a warm interest in your welfare wherever you are; shall not we, Jane?" "That we shall," said Mrs. Hardy heartily. I always thinks well of young men as is good to their mothers. You'll ten to one be living in lodgings where you're going to, Mr. Balmaine." 66 Certainly," answered Alfred with a smile, "and a pretty cheap lodging, too. An hotel would be quite beyond my means.' "Lodgings or hothels, they're all the same. You'll have to see as your bed sheets is not damp, or you'll be getting your death. Many a one has got their death by sleeping in a damp bed. My poor brother Tom did. He took a rheumatic fever, was in a hagony three weeks and died skryking." "Screaming, mother," put in Lizzie indignantly, "why will you use that horrid word?" "Mr. Balmaine knows what I mean, and I never could talk fine. I mun ayther talk my own way or howd my tongue. Mind what I say about damp beds, Mr. Balmaine, and take warning by my brother Tom. And always count your shirts and things when they comen home fro' th' wash, or else you'll be losing summat. Some o' them strange washerwomen is most terrible rogues, not to speyk of knocking your things i' pieces and burning 'em into rags wi' chemic." Lizzie looked daggers, but fearing that if she spoke she might make matters worse, she averted her gaze from Alfred and, as her mother would have said, "held her noise." "Here's a bit of a present as I've bought for you, if you'll kindly accept it," Mrs. Hardy went on; "it is a housewife, and you'll happen find it useful o'er yon. There's needles int', and there's pins int', and a thimble and a bit o' cotton and a twothry shirt buttons. There'll ten to one be nobody to mend you where you're going to, and you'll find it hardy if you want to stitch a button on your shirt or mend a rent i' your trousers.' "Mother!" shrieked Lizzie, her face aflame, and almost choking with shame and vexation. "Well, what is it child?" said Mrs. Hardy looking innocently at her daughter. "What have I said wrong this time? "Nothing at all, I am sure," interposed Alfred. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Hardy. You are very kind, and I have no doubt I shall find the housewife exceedingly useful." "You'll be getting a wife yourself one of these days," said Saintly Sam, with a laugh at his own joke. "I like young fellows to get wed-it steadies 'em. You look out for a wife, Balmaine." "I must first make my fortune, Mr. Hardy, or, at any rate, an income sufficient to keep a wife." "You must marry a girl with an income, that's what you must do-not with an income to come, but an income as has come. Marrying a forten is th' finest way of making money I know-you make so much in one day. And that reminds me of th' forten as us Hardys is after. It looks decidedly hopeful. I really begin to believe we shall get it, after all." "I thought you believed that already, Mr. Hardy?" "So I did, so I did," replied Saintly Sam rather confusedly; "but there is degrees, you know, there is degrees, and I believe in it now more than ever. All the shares is taken up, and we have got power to issue another thousand, so we shall not want for powder and shot. And that is not all. Ferret has heard of an old fellow at Halifax-he left this country thirty years since-as saw 7 John Hardy in London about ten or fifteen years after he left Calder, saw him and spoke to him. He was then partner in the firm of Birkdale, Bickerdyke, and Hardy, of which he afterwards became the head." "How is it that old fellow you speak of did not mention the fact sooner?" "Hardy asked him not, and the thing passed out of his mind till t' other day, when somebody here as he is akin to sent him word about the meeting at the Cock. Ferret thinks it very important, and he is going over to Halifax express to see Murgatroyd that's the old fellow's name. He's very full of it, Ferret is." 'Very important evidence, I should say," observed Alfred carelessly; "supposing Philip Hardy and his daughter are really dead." "Dead! why they are as dead as doornails; they must be dead," returned Saintly Sam, almost angrily. The suggestion that either the missing heir or heiress might possibly still be living made him quite angry. "No, no, my lad, that would never do, to go and spend a mint of money and then one of 'em to turn up and bag the lot. Them two millions must come to Calder, Mr. Belmaine and will. I mean to go on with this job and I never yet failed in owt as I undertook." Alfred wondered what his host would say if he knew that Warton and himself were engaged in an attempt to find either Philip Hardy or Vera, and how a revelation of the fact would affect his relations with Lizzie. "And less likely to attract attention, I suppose-unless you happen to jump on some unfortunate passer-by, as you nearly did on me just now. However, I have no wish to pry into secrets. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, you know. Has the Saint anything fresh about the fortune?” Alfred told what had passed. "I don't think much of that tale," observed the lawyer's clerk. "It's a case of the wish being father to the thought, I expect. And if we cannot find either the girl or her father it makes no odds to us who gets the fortune. But there's no doubt that Hardy is getting hotter. When a man lets his mind dwell on a thing of that sort, he ends by losing his judgment altogether, and Shortly afterwards he took his leave. becoming as credulous as a gambler. Sam When he shook hands with Lizzie she gave is an uncommonly smart man of business in him a significant look. It had been arranged his own line, but fortune hunting is not in that they should meet for a farewell inter- his line, and I should not be a bit surprised view in a sequestered part of the grounds, if he sacrificed the substance to the shadow and Alfred, instead of passing out by the-lost one fortune in trying to get another." lodge gates, turned aside and went by a devious path to keep his tryst. He had not been there long when Lizzie came running. "I have not many minutes to spare," she said breathlessly, and then she threw her arms round Alfred's neck and fell a-weeping, for albeit she consciously posed as an afflicted heroine, and rather overdid the part, she cared so much for Balmaine just then, or thought she did, that his departure was a real grief to her. "You will write to me very often," she whispered as they were about to separate; "and-and I hope you will excuse my mother. It is her way; she means no harm." The remark was indiscreet; it undid all the effect of her weeping, which so touched Alfred's heart that he had felt for a moment as if he really loved her. She is ashamed of her mother, he thought. She has a good deal more reason to be ashamed of her father. The interview lasted only a few minutes, for Lizzie feared that her absence might be remarked. After a few more words and a farewell embrace she ran towards the house, and Alfred leaped over the garden wall into the road. "Hallo!" cried a voice he knew; "do you always come out of Mr. Hardy's garden that way, Balmaine ? " The speaker was Warton. "I have done so to-night," said Alfred coolly; "it is rather nearer than round by the lodge gates." "But you said he did not more than half believe in the Hardy fortune." "I don't think he did at first; but the hope of pocketing forty thousand pounds is getting the upper hand of his judgment. The gambling spirit in him is roused, and the more money he spends the harder it will be for him to draw back. But never mind Sam, now. Did you get that paper I sent you this morning-your brief in the matter of Philip and Vera Hardy, you know? "I did; but I have not had time to read it." "Read it at your leisure. It contains nothing I have not told you before; and is merely to refresh your memory and serve as a reference when you are over yon. You will see Artful and Higginbottom, of course." "Of course; I am too much interested in the case to omit so essential a point." "All right. And if you keep your wits about you we shall find our heiress before Sam finds the forty thousand he is after. But I must be off: Mary will be wondering what has become of me." And after an exchange of "good nights," the clerk went one way and Balmaine another. Alfred walked thoughtfully homeward. The conclusion to which Warton had evidently come, that he and Lizzie were courting, did not trouble him much; the clerk could be trusted to keep his surmises to himself. Alfred's chief present concern referred to his mother and his cousin. Mrs. Balmaine's health was slowly improving, and that was so far satisfactory; but her mind had not recovered its balance, and her temper was as querulous as ever. A little while ago she had reproached him with want of energy, and told him to follow the example. of his brother George, and seek his fortune in a foreign land. She looked upon his connection with the local press as a sort of degradation, and wondered that he should have so little spirit as to accept the wages of a vulgar tradesman like Grindleton; yet now, when he was actually going away, she said he was deserting her in her old age, and that she should have to end her days in the workhouse. This was hard to bear, but Cora's sympathy and counsel, and his conviction that he was acting for the best, enabled him to bear it with patience; yet he felt sorry to leave his cousin to sustain the heat and burden of the day alone, and he proposed, in order that she might be free from anxiety as to money, to remit her half his salary. This she positively refused. "That would leave you only £75 a year," she said; "and you cannot live at Geneva on 275 a year. We shall manage very well. One hundred and fifty pounds and my literary earnings (proudly) will be quite enough for two women.' Alfred smiled. "Your literary earnings! You talk as if you were a swell author with a princely income. It will be quite time enough to reckon your literary earnings when they are realised. In the meanwhile you must consent to share my literary earnings.' So it was agreed that he should send them £50 a year. "That will be a fair division," observed Cora. "If you were to send us more it would be unfair, and I will not have anything unfair if I can help it." CHAPTER XIII.—ARTFUL AND HIGGINBOTTOM. MR. ARTFUL, senior member of the firm of Artful and Higginbottom, was a gentleman of sixty, with white silky hair, a complexion like a piece of crumpled brown paper, little keen grey eyes, and a wonderfully urbane manner; almost too urbane, in fact, for it was hardly in human nature to take the very close personal interest in his clients and their affairs, which he made it an invariable rule to display. He could scarcely have manifested greater delight at seeing Balmaine if the latter had been a son of his own, upon whom he had not set eyes for many years. He probably saw in him a possible client; and when he learnt the nature of his visitor's business his smiling face was clouded for a moment-but only for a moment-by a slight shade of disappointment. "Ah, that is it! You want information about the Hardy trust. Well, I shall be most happy to tell you anything I know, and if you can help us to find a clue to the fate of Mr. Philip Hardy or his daughter we shall be very much obliged to you. It is a troublesome affair, and the executors, both gentlemen of high position in the city of London, would be only too glad to get rid of it. It is solely from a sense of duty and a strong conviction that the heir will sooner or later appear, or be heard of, that they refrain from washing their hands of the matter, and asking the Court of Chancery to relieve them of their responsibility, under the Relief of Trustees Act of 1851; and unless we have news of Mr. Hardy before very long, say, within a twelvemonth, this is the course we shall advise our clients to follow, and then the estate would probably escheat to the Crown. A great pity, but what can we do?" "Unless some heir-at-law were to turn up?" "Of course; but so far as we know the late Mr. Hardy had no relations except his son Philip. Those who knew him best think that he was an illegitimate son, and for that reason kept silence about his origin. If that be so nobody save his son, or other issue, could inherit. Still, nothing certain is known, and it will, I think, be very difficult for any of the claimants of whom we have heard to prove their relationship to the late John Hardy. As you come from Calder, you, of course, know all about the Hardy Fortune Company (Limited). Very ingenious, I am sure; and the story of Mr. Hardy's supposed flight from Calder is romantic in the extreme, and does Mr. Ferret great credit. But we shall throw no impediments in the way. Let him prove that Philip is dead without issue, and that his father was the veritable John Hardy who ran away from Calder fifty years ago, and the estate will-subject to the sanction of the Court of Chancery-be handed over to his clients. But we are a long way from that yet, Mr. Balmaine." Alfred thought it best to tell Mr. Artful frankly how he came to be interested in the matter, and why he sought for information. The lawyer smiled until his little eyes almost disappeared. "I am very glad to hear it," he exclaimed warmly. "I fancied you might be an |