"Dear Sirs,
"(With all the compliments of the season,)
"Yours truly,
"James Parkinson.
"Messrs. Runnington & Co.
"P. S.—The oysters and codfish came to hand in excellent order, for which please accept my best thanks.
"I shall remit you in a day or two £100 on account."
This letter, lying among some twenty or thirty similar ones on Mr. Runnington's table, on the morning of its arrival in town, was opened in its turn; and then, in like manner, with most of the others, handed over to the managing clerk, in order that he might inquire into and report upon the state of the various matters of business referred to. As to the last item (Doe dem. Titmouse v. Roe) in Mr. Parkinson's letter, there seemed no particular reason for hurrying; so two or three days had elapsed before Mr. Runnington, having some little casual business to transact with Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, bethought himself of looking at his Diary, to see if there were not something else that he had to do with that very sharp "house." Putting, therefore, the Declaration in Doe d. Titmouse v. Roe into his pocket, it was not long before he was to be seen at the office in Saffron Hill—and in the very room in it which had been the scene of several memorable interviews between Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse and Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap. I shall not detail what transpired on that occasion between Mr. Runnington, and Messrs. Quirk and Gammon, with whom he was closeted for nearly an hour. On quitting the office his cheek was flushed, and his manner somewhat excited. After walking a little way in a moody manner and with slow step, he suddenly jumped into a hackney-coach, and within a quarter of an hour's time had secured an inside place in the Tally-ho coach, which started for York at two o'clock that afternoon—much doubting within himself, the while, whether he ought not to have set off at once in a post-chaise and four. He then made one or two calls in the Temple; and, hurrying home to the office, made hasty arrangements for his sudden journey into Yorkshire. He was a calm and experienced man—in fact, a first-rate man of business; and you may be assured that this rapid and decisive movement of his had been the result of some very startling disclosure made to him by Messrs. Quirk and Gammon.
Now, let us glide back to the delightful solitude which we reluctantly quitted so short a time ago.
Mr. Aubrey was a studious and ambitious man; and in acceding so readily to the wishes of his wife and sister, to spend the Christmas recess at Yatton, had been not a little influenced by one consideration, which he had not thought it worth while to mention—namely, that it would afford him an opportunity of addressing himself with effect to a very important and complicated question, which was to be brought before the House shortly after its reassembling, and of which he then knew, comparatively speaking, nothing at all. For this purpose he had had a quantity of Parliamentary papers, &c. &c. &c., packed up and sent down by coach; and he quite gloated over the prospect of their being duly deposited upon his table, in the tranquil leisure of his library, at Yatton. But quietly as he supposed all this to have been managed, Mrs. Aubrey and Kate had a most accurate knowledge of his movements, and resolved within themselves, (being therein comforted and assisted by old Mrs. Aubrey,) that, as at their instances Mr. Aubrey had come down to Yatton, so they would take care that he should have not merely nominal, but real holidays. Unless he thought fit to rise at an early hour in the morning, (which Mrs. Aubrey, junior, took upon herself to say she would take care should never be the case,) it was decreed that he should not be allowed to waste more than two hours a-day alone in his library. 'T was therefore in vain for him to sit at breakfast with eye aslant and thought-laden brow, as if meditating a long day's seclusion; somehow or another, he never got above an hour to himself. He was often momentarily petulant on these occasions, and soon saw through the designs of his enemies; but he so heartily and tenderly loved them—so thoroughly appreciated the affection which dictated their little manœuvres—that he soon surrendered at discretion, and, in fact, placed himself almost entirely at their mercy; resolving to make up for lost time on his return to town, and earnestly hoping that the interests of the nation would not suffer in the mean while! In short, the ladies of Yatton had agreed on their line of operations: that almost every night of their stay in the country should be devoted either to entertaining or visiting their neighbors; and as a preparatory movement, that the days (weather permitting) should be occupied with exercise in the open air; in making "morning" calls on neighbors at several miles' distance from the Hall and from each other; and from which they generally returned only in time enough to dress for dinner. As soon, indeed, as the York True Blue (the leading county paper) had announced the arrival at Yatton of "Charles Aubrey, Esq., M. P., and his family, for the Christmas recess," the efforts of Mrs. and Miss Aubrey were most powerfully seconded by a constant succession of visitors—by