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cabinet, nor could she coax or wheedle him tle which had served for Sir Pitt's carouse, out of the keys. And it is a fact, that some and through that apartment into Sir Pitt's time after she left Queen's Crawley, a copy- study, where they found Miss Horrocks, of book belonging to this lady was discovered, the guilty ribbons, with a wild air, trying at which showed that she had taken great pains the presses and escritoires with a bunch of in private to learn the art of writing in gen- keys. She dropped them with a scream of eral, and especially of writing her own name terror, as little Mrs. Bute's eyes flashed out as Lady Crawley, Lady Betsy Horrocks, at her from under her black calash. Lady Elizabeth Crawley, &c.

Though the good people of the parsonage never went to the Hall, and shunned the horrid old dotard its owner, yet they kept a strict knowledge of all that happened there, and were looking out every day for the catastrophe, for which Miss Horrocks was also eager. But Fate intervened enviously, and prevented her from receiving the reward due to such immaculate love and virtue.

One day the baronet surprised "her ladyship," as he jocularly called her, seated at that old and tuneless piano in the drawingroom, which had scarcely been touched since Becky Sharp played quadrilles upon it. Seated at the piano with the utmost gravity, and squalling to the best of her power in imitation of the music which she had sometimes heard. The little kitchen-maid on her promotion was standing at her mistress's side, quite delighted during the operation, and wagging her head up and down, and crying, "Lor, Mum, 'tis bittiful,"-just like a genteel sycophant in a real drawing-room.

This incident made the old baronet roar with laughter, as usual. He narrated the circumstance a dozen times to Horrocks in the course of the evening, and greatly to the discomfiture of Miss Horrocks. He thrummed on the table as if it had been a musical instrument, and squalled in imitation of her manner of singing. He vowed that such a beautiful voice ought to be cultivated, and declared she ought to have singing-masters, in which proposals she saw nothing ridiculous. He was in great spirits that night; and drank with his friend and butler an extraordinary quantity of rum-and-water-at a very late hour the faithful friend and domestie conducted his master to his bed-room.

"Look at that, James and Mr. Crawley," cried Mrs. Bute, pointing at the scared figure of the black-eyed, guilty wench.

"He gave 'em me; he gave 'em me!" she cried.

"Gave them you, you abandoned creature!" screamed Mrs. Bute. "Bear witness, Mr. Crawley, we found this good-fornothing woman in the act of stealing your brother's property; and she will be hanged, as I always said she would."

Betsy Horrocks quite daunted, flung herself down on her knees, bursting into tears. But those who know a really good woman are aware that she is not in a hurry to forgive, and that the humiliation of an enemy is triumph to her soul.

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Ring the bell, James," Mrs. Bute said. "Go on ringing it till the people come." The three or four domestics resident in the deserted old house came presently at that jangling and continued summons. "Put that woman in the strong-room," she said. 46 We caught her in the act of robbing Sir Pitt. Mr. Crawley, you'll make out her committal and, Beddoes, you'll drive her over in the spring-cart, in the morning to Southampton jail.”

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My dear," interposed the magistrate and rector-" she's only-"”

"Are there no handcuffs?" Mrs. Bute continued, stamping in her clogs. "There used to be handcuffs. Where's the creature's abominable father?”

"He did give 'em me," still cried poor Betsy; "didn't he, Hester? You saw Sir Pitt-you know you did give 'em me, ever so long ago-the day after Mudbery fair: not that I want 'em. Take 'em if you think they ain't mine." And here the unHalf an hour afterward there was a great happy wretch pulled out from her pocket a hurry and bustle in the house. Lights went large pair of paste shoe-buckles which had about from window to window in the lonely, excited her admiration, and which she had desolate old Hall, whereof but two or three just appropriated out of one of the bookrooms were ordinarily occupied by its owner. cases in the study, where they had lain. Presently, a boy on a pony went galloping off to Mudbury, to the doctor's house there. And in another hour (by which fact we ascertain how carefully the excellent Mrs. Bute Crawley had always kept up an understanding with the great house), that lady, in her clogs and calash, the Reverend Bute Crawley, and James Crawley, her son, had walked over from the Rectory, through the park, and had entered the mansion by the open hall-door.

They passed through the hall and the small oak parlor, on the table of which stood the three tumblers and the empty rum-bot-]

"Law, Betsy, how could you go for to tell such a wicked story!" said Hester, the little kitchen-maid late on her promotion— "and to Madam Crawley, so good and kind, and his rev'rince (with a courtesy) and you may search all my boxes, mum, I'm sure, and here's my keys, as I'm an honest girl though of pore parents and workhouse bred—and if you find so much as a beggarly bit of lace or a silk stocking out of all the gownds as you've had the picking of may I never go to church agin."

"Give up your keys, you hardened hus

sy," hissed out the virtuous little lady in the | Crawley. For though the old baronet surcalash.

"And here's a candle, mum, and if you please, mum, I can show you her room, mum, and the press in the housekeeper's room, mum, where she keeps heaps and heaps of things, mum," cried out the eager little Hester with a profusion of courtesys.

vived many months, he never recovered the
use of his intellect or his speech complete-
ly, and the government of the estate de-
volved upon his elder son.
In a strange
condition Pitt found it. Sir Pitt was always
buying and mortgaging: he had twenty men
of business, and quarrels with each; quar-
rels with all his tenants, and lawsuits with
them; lawsuits with the lawyers; lawsuits
with the Mining and Dock Companies in
which he was proprietor; and with every
person with whom he had business. To
unravel these difficulties, and set the estate
clear, was a task worthy of the orderly and
persevering diplomatist of Pumpernickel;
and he set himself to work with prodigious
assiduity. His whole family, of course, was

"Hold your tongue if you please. I know the room which the creature occupies perfectly well. Mrs. Brown, have the goodness to come with me, and Beddoes don't you lose sight of that woman," said Mrs. Bute, seizing the candle. "Mr. Crawley you had better go up-stairs, and see that they are not murdering your unfortunate brother"-and the calash, escorted by Mrs. Brown, walked away to the apartment which, as she said truly, she knew transported to Queen's Crawley, whither perfectly well.

Bute went up-stairs, and found the doctor from Mudbury, with the frightened Horrocks over his master in a chair. They were trying to bleed Sir Pitt Crawley.

With the early morning an express was sent off to Mr. Pitt Crawley by the rector's lady, who assumed the command of every thing, and had watched the old baronet through the night. He had been brought back to a sort of life; he could not speak, but seemed to recognize people. Mrs. Bute kept resolutely by his bed-side. She never seemed to want to sleep, that little woman, and did not close her fiery black eyes once, though the doctor snored in the armchair. Horrocks made some wild efforts to assert his authority and assist his master: but Mrs. Bute called him a tipsy old wretch, and bade him never show his face again in that house or he should be transported like his abominable daughter.

Terrified by her manner he slunk down to the oak parlor where Mr. James was, who, having tried the bottle standing there and found no liquor in it, ordered Mr. Horrocks to get another bottle of rum, which he fetched, with clean glasses, and to which the rector and his son sate down : ordering Horrocks to put down the keys at that instant and never to show his face again.

Cowed by this behavior Horrocks gave up the keys: and he and his daughter slunk off silently through the night, and gave up possession of the house of Queen's Crawley.

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Lady Southdown, of course, came too; and she set about converting the parish under the rector's nose, and brought down her irregular clergy to the dismay of the angry Mrs. Bute. Sir Pitt had concluded no bargain for the sale of the living of Queen's Crawley; when it should drop her ladyship proposed to take the patronage into her own hands, and present a young protégé to the Rectory; on which subject the diplomatic Pitt said nothing.

Mrs. Bute's intentions with regard to Miss Betsy Horrocks were not carried into effect; and she paid no visit to Southampton Jail. She and her father left the Hall, when the latter took possession of the Crawley Arms in the village, of which he had got a lease from Sir Pitt. The ex-butler had obtained a small freehold there likewise, which gave him a vote for the borough. The rector had another of these votes, and these and four others formed the representative body which returned the two members for Queen's Crawley.

Perhaps

There was a show of courtesy kept up between the Rectory and the Hall ladies, between the younger ones at least, for Mrs. Bute and Lady Southdown never could meet without battles, and gradually ceased seeing each other. Her ladyship kept her room when the ladies from the Rectory visited their cousins at the Hall. Mr. Pitt was not very much displeased at these occasional absences of his mamma-inlaw. He believed the Binkie family to be the greatest and wisest, and most interesting in the world, and her ladyship and his aunt had long held ascendency over him: but sometimes he felt that she commanded him too much. To be considered young was complimentary doubtless; but at sixtimes mortifying. Lady Jane yielded up and-forty to be treated as a boy was someevery thing, however, to her mother. was only fond of her children in private; and it was lucky for her that Lady Southdown's multifarious business, her confer

She

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