“Ah, sir, they are far different from those I have shed in the silence and solitude of my various prisons. Those were wrung from me by despair. These come from a heart too full of gratitude.”
Sir Francis Hartleton now rung a small hand bell, which was immediately answered by a servant, to whom he said,—
“Tell your mistress to come to me here;” then turning to Ada, he said, with a half-smile upon his face—“Now, my dear Ada, I shall have nothing to do with you till to-morrow. I am but recently married, and my wife will love you for your own sake as well as for mine. She knows what of your history I know, and is well prepared to give you welcome.”
At this moment a lady entered the room, and Ada cast her eyes upon her face. That one glance was sufficient to assure her she had found a friend, for it was one of those faces that cannot conceal the goodness of the owner’s heart.
“Emilia, this is Ada,” said Sir Francis Hartleton. “I will not say make much of her, and I don’t think you can spoil her.”
CHAPTER LIX.
Jacob Gray and His Kind Friends.—The Plunder.—Thieves’ Morality.—The Drive to Hampstead.
When Jacob Gray fell upon the floor in a state of utter insensibility in consequence of the powerful narcotic drug infused into his drink by his two kind and considerate friends, those two gentlemen looked on with the utmost composure for a few moments, and then Bill remarked in a careless voice,—
“I think he’ll do now, Moggs?”
“In course,” responded the other, withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, and knocking out the ashes very deliberately upon the hob of the grate.