He

The effort was too much for the moribund Professor. did not complete the utterance of his formula, at least on this side of the great curtain. Probably when he awoke in the next life, conscious of his identity, he felt very much in the mood of that other man of science, who, on being told that the microscope would confute an elaborate theory he had raised, refused to look through the impertinent instrument.

For several months Peek retained his place under Braxton. But even overseers, whip in hand, cannot frighten off Death. Braxton disappeared through the common portal. His successor, Hawks, had a theory that the true mode of managing niggers was to overawe them by extreme severity at the start, and then taper off into clemency. He had been lord of the lash a week or two, when he was asked by Mr. Barnwell how he got along with Peek.

66 Capitally!" replied Hawks. "I took care to put him through his paces at our first meeting, — took the starch right out of him. He'd score his own mother now if I told him to. He's a thorough nigger-is Peek. is Peek. A nigger must fear a white man before he can like him. Peek would go through fire and water for me now. He has behaved so well, I have given him a pass to visit his sister at Carter's."

"I never knew before that Peek had a sister," said Barnwell.

Peek did not come back from that visit.

nihil est incorporale, nisi quod non est. Quis enim negabit Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est? Spiritus enim corpus sui generis, sua effigie;

"For there is nothing, if not body. All that is, is body after its kind; nothing is incorporeal except what is not. For who will deny God to be body, albeit God is spirit? For spirit is body of its proper kind, in its proper effigy." These views are not inconsistent with those entertained by many modern Spiritualists.

CHAPTER VII.

WE

AN UNCONSCIOUS HEIRESS.

"She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near' ;
And the white rose weeps, 'She is late ';
The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear ';

And the lily whispers, 'I wait.""

Tennyson.

E left Peek (known in New York as Jacobs) in the little closet opening from the apartment where Charlton sat at his papers. The knock at the outer door was succeeded by the entrance of a person of rather imposing presence.

Mr. Albert Pompilard stood upwards of six feet in his polished shoes and variegated silk stockings. He was bulky, and could not conceal, by any art of dress, an incipient paunch. But whether he was a youth of twenty-five or a man of fifty it was very difficult to judge on a hasty inspection. He was in reality sixty-nine. He affected an extravagantly juvenile and jaunty style of dress, and was never twenty-four hours behind the extreme fashions of Young America.

On this occasion Mr. Pompilard was dressed in a light-colored sack or pea-jacket, with gaping pockets and enormous buttons, the cloth being a sort of shaggy, woollen stuff, coarse enough for a mat. His pantaloons and vest were of the same astounding fabric. He wore a new black hat, just ironed and brushed by Leary; a neckerchief of a striped red-and-black silk, loosely tied; immaculate linen; and a diamond on his little finger. A thick gold chain passed round his neck, and entered his vest pocket. He swung a gold-headed switch, and was followed by a little terrier dog of a breed new to Broadway.

Mr. Pompilard's complexion was somewhat florid, and presented few marks of age. He wore his own teeth, which were

still sound and white, and his own hair, including whiskers, although the hue was rather too black to be natural.

"I believe I have the honor of addressing Mr. Charlton," said Pompilard, with the air of one who is graciously bestowing a condescension.

"That's my name, sir. What's your business?" replied Charlton, in the curt, dry manner of one who gives his information grudgingly.

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'My name, sir, is Pompilard. You may not be aware that there is a sort of family connection between us.”

"Ah! yes; I remember," said Charlton, looking inquiringly at his visitor, but not asking him to sit down.

Pompilard returned his gaze, as if waiting for something; then, seeing that nothing came, he lifted a chair, replaced it with emphasis on the floor, and sat down. If it was a rebuke, Charlton did not take it, though the terrier seemed to comprehend it fully, for he began to bark, and made a reconnoissance of Charlton's legs that plainly meant mischief.

Pompilard refreshed himself for a moment with the lawyer's alarm, then ordered Grip to lie down under the table, which he did with a quavering whine of expostulation.

"I see," said Pompilard, "you almost forget the precise nature of the connection to which I allude. Let me explain : the lady who has the honor to be your wife is the step-mother, I believe, of Mr. Henry Berwick."

"Both the step-mother and aunt," interposed Charlton, somewhat mollified by the language of his visitor.

66

"Yes, she was half-sister to his own mother," resumed Pompilard. Well, the wife of Mr. Henry Berwick was Miss Aylesford of Chicago, and is the niece of my present wife."

"I understand all that," said Charlton; and then, as the thought occurred to him that he might make the connection useful, he rose, and, offering his hand, said, "I am happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Pompilard." That gentleman rose and exchanged salutations; and Grip, under the table, gave a smothered howl, subsiding into a whine, as if he felt personally aggrieved by the concession, and would like to put his teeth in the calf of a certain leg.

"My object in calling," said Pompilard, " is merely to inquire

if you can give me the present address of Mrs. Henry Berwick. My wife wishes to communicate with her."

Charlton generally either evaded a direct question or answered it by a lie. He never received a request for information, even in regard to the time of day, that he did not cast about in his mind to see how he could gain by the withholding or profit by the giving. He took it for granted that every man was trying to get the advantage of him; and he resolved to take the initiative in that game. And so, to Pompilard's inquiry, Charlton replied:

"I really cannot say whether Mr. Berwick is in the country or not. The last I heard of him he was in Paris."

"Then your intelligence of him is not so late as mine. He arrived in Boston some days since, but left immediately for the West by the way of Albany. I thought your wife might be in communication with him."

"They seldom correspond."

"I must inquire about him at the Union Club," said Pompilard, musingly. "By the way, Mr. Charlton, you deal in real estate securities, do you not?"

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'Occasionally. There are some old-fashioned persons who consult me in regard to investments."

"Do you want any good mortgages?" asked Pompilard. "Just at present, money is very scarce and high," replied Charlton.

"That's the very reason why I want it," said his visitor. "Could you negotiate a thirty thousand dollar mortgage for me?"

66

"But that's a very large sum."

"Another reason why I want it," returned Pompilard. Supposing the security were satisfactory, what bonus should you require for getting me the money ? Please give me your lowest terms, and at once, for I have an engagement in five minutes on 'Change."

"Well, sir," said Charlton, in the tone of a man to whom it is an ordinary act to drive the knife in deep, "I think in these times five per cent would be about right."

"Pooh! I'll bid you good morning, Mr. Charlton," said Pompilard, with an air of unspeakable contempt. "Come, Grip."

And Mr. Pompilard bowed and turned to leave, just as another knock was heard at the door. He opened it, encountering four men, one of whom kicked the unoffending terrier ; an indignity which Pompilard resented by switching the aggressor smartly twice round the legs, and then passed on. He had not descended five steps when a bullet from a pistol grazed his whiskers. "Not a bad shot that, my Southern friend!" said the old man, deliberately continuing his descent.

Before losing sight of Pompilard we must explain why he was desirous that his wife should communicate with Mrs. Berwick.

Inheriting a fortune from his mother, Albert Pompilard had managed to squander it in princely expenditures before he was twenty-five years old. The vulgar dissipations of sensualists he despised. He abstained from wine and strong drink at a time when to abstain was to be laughed at. With the costliest viands and liquors on his table for guests, he himself ate sparingly and drank cold water. Had he been as scrupulously moral in the management of his soul as he was of his body, he would have been a saint. But he was a spendthrift and a gambler on a large scale.

Having ruined himself financially, he married. A little money which his wife brought him was staked entire on a stock operation, and won. Thence a new fortune larger than the first. At thirty-five he was worth half a million. He took his wife, two daughters, and a son to Paris, gave entertainments that made even royalty envious, and in ten years returned to New York a bankrupt. His wife died, and Pompilard appeared once more at the stock board. Ill-luck now pursued him with remorseless pertinacity, but never succeeded in disturbing his equanimity. He was frightfully in debt, but the consideration never for a moment marred his digestion nor his slumbers. The complacency of a man contented with himself and the world shed its beams over his features always.

At fifty, a widower, with three children, he carried off and married Miss Aylesford, who at the time was on a visit to New York, a girl of eighteen, handsome, accomplished, and worth half a million. In vain had her brother tried to open her eyes to Pompilard's character as an inveterate fortune-hunter and