'Mine coote Montam Bawl,' he says, 'I dzink to-morrow I vill eat dzee fleish-suppe-five pounds ox, five pounds calf, five pounds sheep, dzree pounds shwine fleish, mid dzee fleish of twelf shicken, vich you gut shmall, und shtews dzem in one pig bot, mid garrotsh, creen peas, und dzee dobs of twelf pundles of sbarrowcrass. No vasser, pot dzree pottlesh Marcobrunner und too pottles Johannisberger-vich make dzee suppe rich. For mine fishes, von peck of dzee leetell videpate, von sammon, von turpot, und von dutzend schollen-vat you gall dzee soul.'

By this time poor Grasper is well-nigh choking with rage and grief, but he dares not even murmur, for fear lest he should incur a heavy fine for interfering with his boarder's appetite.

For mine Braten-vat you gall dzee roast shoint-I vill have dzee Kalbsbraten -vat you gall dzee weal, und dzee Frenshman dzee veau, vence gomes dzee broverp, "Gome weal, gome woe.'

'What joint of veal would you like, sir?' says Mrs. Pall.

'Dzee four quarters,' replied Herr Allgut.

The fore-quarter, you mean, sir?' inquires Mrs. Pall.

It ist not coot grammar, Montam Bawl. Von quarter ist von quarter, two quarters ist two quarters, und four quarters ist four quarters, vich it ist von calf; mid vich I vantsh von ham of fifteen pounds, und twenty-four marrow-tumplins.'

'Don't you think twenty-four dumplings too much?' says Mrs. Pall doubtfully.

'If you dzink twenty-four tumplins too mosh, make for me only twenty mid dzee marrow, bot make dzee twenty von leetell pit pigger. Py und pye I vill dzink of some ozzer leetell dzings, Montam Bawl.'

'Wouldn't you like some oysters and lobster-salad, Herr Allgut?'

blandly inquires Mrs. Pall, to Grasper's intensest disgust.

The miser, not daring to give vent to his feelings, fiercely shakes his fist behind his back at Mrs. Pall.

'Oyshters ist nishe,' says the German briskly, 'und lopstersh ist nishe. I dzink I vill eat twelf dutzend of dzee leetell, leetell native, und von dutzend of dzee piled lopstersh in dzee zallats.'

Here the unhappy miser groans.

Ist you daken pad in your inzides, mine cooter froind, Mishtare Crashbare?' inquires Herr Allgut, with deep interest.

'No, no,' snarls Grasper. 'A sudden spasm, that's all.' Then muttering to himself, Curse you, you monstrous glutton! I only wish I were in your inside for five minutes, I'd spoil your appetite for you for evermore, I'll warrant.'

'You musht not croan, mine cooter froind, Mishtare Crashbare. Itindervere mid mine appeteet, vich ist preaches of govenance, you know.'

Had poor Grasper gone into the scales before and after any of these scenes he would certainly always have found his weight one pound at least less after than before.

But this was not the sum-total of Grasper's misery.

From the earliest dawn of day to the latest hour of night the German would be up and about the house, and he would, with perverse persistence, always somehow, by himselfor through his followers, contrive to intrude upon Grasper in a fashion which made it almost impossible for the master of the house to have even half a minute's private interview with his ward, to whom Herr Allgut would make fierce love in a grotesque way before Grasper's eyes, leering at her amorously through his blue glasses, pressing his hand on his heart, blowing kisses to her, and bursting into

snatches of German doleful love songs, until the old man was ready to burst with vexation and rage. And the slightest attempt at even the mildest remonstrance on his part was at once resented by the German as an insidious endeavour to interfere with his appetite. 'Vich ist preaches of govenance, you know,' he warned his cooter friend, Mishtare Crashbare.

Little Florence seemed to take a delight in encouraging Herr Allgut's addresses, and she sweetly smiled upon the eccentric German, who, when not actually busy with his meals, divided his time pretty equally between open declarations of his 'bassionate loaf' of Miss Walden and copious draughts of most expensive wines, of which he would make a couple of bottles seemingly disappear with marvellous expedition every half-hour or so of the day. And, as poor Grasper found to his grief and cost, it was not the least use to try to palm inferior sorts upon him. He need merely smell the cork to know at once the wine and the year of the vintage.

Charlie Slinker found the task imposed upon him by his patron the reverse of easy. There was a complicated safety-lock to the door of Grasper's room, and a more complicated one still to the Florentine cabinet in it, which was also plentifully stored with most ingeniously contrived secret recesses. At last, after a month's patient watching and study, Charlie succeeded in his undertaking. He found and took what he wanted, and carried it to the inn to Mr. Grainger, who somehow always managed to come down just when his presence was required.

In the afternoon of that day Domber received from Walter Grainger's hand the written confession extorted from him many

years back by Grasper, and his appointment to the stewardship of the Greenlands estate. Charles Slinker had five hundred pounds given to him to enable him to begin a new life in America.

Dr. Reynolds, who had judiciously kept out of Grasper's way, thought the time had come for trying a daring and decisive experiment upon his victim. He sent him word the same afternoon to meet him, if convenient, at the inn where he was staying.

When Grasper received this message he was in a truly pitiable state. He had just cast up his accounts for the last month, and he had come to the sad conclusion that five years of this must inevitably end in his utter ruin; for not only was this horrid brute fast eating away his substance, but the incessant contemplation of his own misery was beginning to affect his mind, and to make him unfit for the proper and profitable pursuit of his business. His despair was conjuring up dark thoughts in his brain-thoughts of murder, which boded no good to the German inmate of his house.

He eagerly responded to Reynolds's invitation, with his mind in a dangerously receptive and plastic condition.

In reply to his bitter reproaches that he, the son of his old schoolfellow, had vilely plotted to plant this infernal locust (Allgut) on his substance, who was now devouring him root and branch, flesh and bone, Reynolds replied, with an injured air,

'I must protest against this language, Mr. Grasper. I made no false representation to you. I warned you explicitly and distinctly that the man had an inordinate appetite.'

Inordinate shouted Grasper, inordinate! Appalling, sir, appal

ling!'

'Not more so, surely, Mr. Grasper, than your own craving for gold.'

'Jeer on, young man,' replied Grasper, with tears in his voice, 'jeer on. I must even bear it.'

'Well, my dear sir, you will not contest that ten thousand pounds in a lump is a large sum of money to pay for a man's keep.'

'A man, indeed! An ogre, sir, a ghoul ! But why have you sent for me?'

"To talk reason to you, Mr. Grasper. Look here, sir. I think I have found out the nature of Herr Allgut's abnormal craving for food and drink; and I believe there is a way to cure him, albeit a perilous way. This abnormal craving is causally connected with a functional disorder of the skin, which makes all solids and liquids he takes incontinently turn to gas in him, and go off in insensible perspiration. Now there is a remedy for this, but it is a most heroic and dangerous remedy-a formidable poison, indeed-arsenic, to wit, with just one chance out of a hundred that it will not kill the patient outright. Arsenic is very fashionable with the profession just now, especially in cases of consumption-'

'Try it on him, try it on him, my dear Reynolds! Surely there cannot be a worse case of consumption than his. Kill-cure him, I mean-cure him, my dear Reynolds, and the sooner the better.'

'What will you give me if I-cure him?' asked the doctor slowly, and with the coolest deliberation.

'A thousand pounds and my eternal gratitude!' shouted Grasper.

At this juncture the door of an inner apartment opened, and in walked Herr Allgut, flaming with angry passion, followed by old Mr. Grainger, Sir Richard Greenlands, and Domber.

'Vat for you gonsbire to bisen mine inzides?' he cried indignantly.

'It is a plant, a vile plant! I see it all now,' howled Grasper, nearly beside himself with terror and rage. 'Blind fool that I have been, not to see through this from the first! But you,' turning to Domber, shall smart for this. The world shall know you for what you are !'

He was rushing off madly, when the solicitor placed a firm detaining hand upon him.

'Not so fast, Mr. Grasper,' he said calmly. The document extorted by you from this unhappy victim of your crafty villany is no longer in existence; and,' holding up a deed, 'you see that I am in possession also of the bond which you had so basely purloined. Under these circumstances, you will readily understand that an application will at once, even without Miss Walden's assent-or, if necessary, against her will-be made to the Lord Chancellor to place the young lady under a more trustworthy guardian. How Herr Allgut here may choose to proceed, I know not.'

Grasper looked livid. He felt that he had been outwitted in every way, and that he was helplessly in the toils.

'Is there no way of preventing a public scandal?' said Sir Richard, coming forward. Suppose, Mr. Grasper, you give your consent to your ward's marriage with me, in consideration of my engaging to drop all notion of proceeding in Chancery, and to relieve you, in addition, from your somewhat onerous bargain with Herr Allgut -provided, of course, that gentleman will consent to the exchange, and on his part drop all proceedings against you.'

'I gonsent,' cried the German. 'Mine leyven ist in too mosh creat

HER PLIGHTED TROTH,

CHAPTER XXII.

OMNIA VINCIT AMOR.

CROSSING the Atlantic under a feigned name, and thereby baffling the hungry creditors that had for months hunted him down like so many pitiless bloodhounds, Steven Keane had succeeded in gaining freedom from anxiety, and the means and ways of entering on a new and better existence, if it so pleased him.

But to Steven Keane's wife the weeks dragged by like months. Alone, well-nigh penniless, and horribly weary of her very life, the woman whose lot seemed cast for misery pined away in that shabby lodging-house, thinking of the past, till her whole heart sickened beneath the burden of memory, and turned with an unutterable craving, like a poor tired animal, for any place of rest.

She had, with an ungrudging hand, given every available farthing to the husband who little heeded her fate. In truth, unstable as water, wavering as a reed, Steven Keane had had such unlimited faith in her talent and resources, that he had been wont to depend on them, instead of providing for

her.

Throughout the latter years of poverty and struggle, the man, in his complete selfishness and natural coarseness, had wholly forgotten that the more talented a woman, the more sensitive she usually was,

VOL. XXI.

and that the power to accomplish his ends was only gained by the sacrifice of her pride and delicacy, and that intense womanliness that so often underlies talent and energy.

Caring only for the result, Steven Keane had been thoroughly indifferent to anything his wife might suffer in bringing that result about. So he left her-left her solitary and penniless-to battle for herself in the great warfare of life; left her to struggle with the cruel world, and with her own passionate regretful heart; while he never for a moment doubted that she would, to use his own phrase at his last good-bye, 'get on somehow.'

Poor proud unhappy woman! She forced, with an immense effort, a sickly woebegone smile to her quivering lips when he said that. She flung her thin wasted arms wildly round his neck; she clung to him desperately, and kissed him with the fervent love that still stirred her pulses; and she tried hard to take his words as a tribute to her worth.

Then he went away, leaving some hot tears shining amongst the wrinkles on her cheek, and the saddest dreariest feelings that ever lived in a woman's bosom. After a little while, the dead existence. his absence had brought grew like a lump of lead, weighing her down. to the earth; and from this she was roused by the petty but sharp stings of an empty purse. For a little time the proprietress of the

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