“So as I’ve got to look at another dog at Chambers,—though[Pg 39] Scrub’s a first-love I shall never get over; yes, that dog’s a bruised place here, I can tell you”—and the mourner pointed his fore-finger to his heart—“I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I suppose, girls, you’ll go to this fête, like the rest of ’em, in your war-paint?” (The young ladies could not tell what he meant.) “Therefore, for the honour of the family, I must start a new tooth-pick. So, the loyalty I must have, my dear madam—the loyalty, my honoured parent, or in two hours I’m cutting my name with a shilling pen-knife in the Tower of London. Good morning,” and Basil, with his best grace, saluted the hand of his mother, filliped a kiss to both the girls, and strode from the room.

[Pg 39]

“Well, he is a handsome fellow,” said Monica.

“Handsome! he’s beautiful,” cried Agatha.

“Beautiful!”—exclaimed the mother, sighing—“he’s his own father, when I first met him. Yes; every look, and every tone a Pennibacker.”

“Mr. Jericho’s in his room, ma’am,” said Edwin the page.

“Oh!” said Mrs. Jericho.

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Jericho sat in his study; and still his dream sat astride his spirit. Much of the first distinctness of the vision had faded in the morning light; nevertheless, he could piece out sufficient from its mistiness to make him dull and dumpish. He was not a superstitious man—certainly not. He would despise himself to be troubled by a dream; and then he shifted in his seat, and took up the newspaper and laid it down again. And then he thought all dreams were to be read backwards: and thus, his vision of the Bank Cellars was to be mockingly realised by the Queen’s Bench. And then he looked about him and took heart. Pooh! dreams were playthings for conjurors and gypsies; quite beneath the thought of a reasonable, a respectable man. He had often dreamt he had been hanged, and what had come of it?[Pg 40] Nothing; good or bad. Mr. Jericho again took up the newspaper, and was endeavouring to interest himself in the affairs of his holiness the Pope, when the door opened. He winced, for he knew the feminine turn of the handle; he winced, we say, but nevertheless manfully with the paper before his eyes tried to keep his soul apart—far away at the Court of 

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