cock-of-the-walk yet, it seems, though you have paid so large a sum for the place.'

"He had been drinking deeply, and his cheeks were flushed and his eyes bloodshot. As he staggered up to me, and snapped his fingers insolently in my face, it would have been hard, even for you, to have seen any good looks in him. It was plain enough, doubtless, even to his drunken gaze, that I saw none; for when I answered nothing, he added:

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Ah, you are not pleased, it seems, to see me back again, whom you thought to have got rid of so cleverly!'

"I have your promise still,' said I.

"My promise? Yes; you have got that, and much good may it do you. You have also your own bill for a thousand pounds. It's her handwriting, man, though it pretends to be yours; your name, in her handwriting. Why, that must be worth a thousand pounds to you, since you love her so!'

"Why, if I had killed him then, woman, if I had struck him down while he was saying such words as those, and killed him, it would not have been murder! I only answered, however:

"You are mistaken, Richard. I can produce that bill in court, even yet, though I have cashed it, and bring the forgery home to you; and I will!'

"Not you,' answered he contemptuously; 'you poor, soft-hearted, love-sick fool, not you! you would never dare to do it! And if you did, who would believe you? Do you suppose that Maggie would go against her faithful Richardher husband that is to be? aye, and is soon to be! You have held your cards a little too low, brother John, and I have looked over them. You have wanted her for yourself (as I once told you) all along; but just within these last few hours -come, confess it—you have flattered yourself that you were going to win her. Instead of that, she will be mine-mine! Congratulate me! Let us have something to drink her health

in. The wine is out; I will go down to the cellar, and get a bottle.'

"You have drunk enough,' said I, 'more than enough; and I have got something to say to you that it is necessary you should understand.'

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grin.

'Something about Maggie, eh?' chuckled he with a vile

"'Yes.'

"There will be lots of time for that, my good fellow; we will talk of her while we toast her. And in a week or two, when we shall be married and happy-I don't know for how long; it is quite likely I may tire of her: my little Alice is very much to my taste, I own; and then there may be a divorce, perhaps, and you may marry her after all; how

ever

"Where was I? I say, when I and Maggie are Darby and Joan together, we will talk of you. If she annoys me, I shall say: 'Why didn't you marry John, you pretty fool? He would have let you have your own way, which, as the case now is, you haven't got.' When conversation languishes, our model John will be quite a topic.-Come, what shall be our liquor? I have had enough, you say, and perhaps I have, of brandy-let it be champagne, then.'

"You shall drink no more to-night, Richard.'

"But he ran by me, before I could stop him, and down the cellar-stairs; I snatched up a candle and followed him to the top of them. He knew his way to every bin blindfold, and had already a champagne bottle in his hand, and was turning to come up again.

"That wine,' cried I, 'is mine, not yours; and you shall not drink it.'

"It was true enough. Half only of what my uncle had left was his, and he had already had three-fourths of everything. I don't rightly know why I was so determined about

the wine; whether I really wished to work upon his fears once more, while he was still sober enough to listen to me, or whether my patience had been taxed beyond its powers, and I was fixed to exact my rights at last; but I was resolved that he should drink no more that night.

"Not drink!' cried he contemptuously: 'I shall drink what I please, and, what is more, Maggie shall drink also. There is nothing that a woman will not learn of the man she loves; and nothing, if he neglects her, so likely for her to take to as liquor. How it will shock our model John, our temperance brother-in-law, who had such a high opinion of us- You had best let me pass.'

"Not with that wine,' cried I. He had tumbled halfway up the stairs by this time, and I had come down a few steps, and stood there barring the way. For all his cold, contemptuous talk, I think he had been furious against me all along; and seeing me quite resolved to balk him of his whim, and being passionately scornful of the man who had been his slave so long, and borne so much, he suddenly lost all control of himself. 'Take that, then,' cried he, and made

at me with the bottle.

"I struck out in self-defence-I swear it-with my fist, and he fell backwards down the steps, and on to the cellar floor. So little force had I employed, that the candle in my other hand-the right-was not put out. I ran down the steps to help him; but he was past all help. He had fallen head foremost upon the stones, and never moaned nor moved. I, his brother, had killed him! That was my first thought, Maggie; and my second, if that can be called so which was a part of my first, and suggested by it, was, And I had lost You for ever.

"It would have been the natural course, but for that circumstance (as it was unquestionably the safe and prudent one), to have at once roused our little household, and