have settled the main point, let us finish the lush!"
"And," added Augustus, taking a pack of cards from the chimney-piece, "we can in the mean while have a quiet game at cribbage for shillings."
"Done!" cried Ned, clearing away the dessert.
If the redoubted hearts of Mr. Edward Pepper, and that Ulysses of robbers, Augustus Tomlinson, beat high as the hours brought on Lord Mauleverer's fête, their leader was not without anxiety and expectation for the same event. He was uninvited, it is true, to the gay scene; but he had heard in public that Miss Brandon, recovered from her late illness, was certainly to be there; and Clifford, torn with suspense, and eager once more, even if for the last time, to see the only person who had ever pierced his soul with a keen sense of his errors, or crimes, resolved to risk all obstacles, and meet her at Mauleverer's.
"My life," said he, as he sat alone in his apartment, eyeing the falling embers of his still and lethargic fire, "may soon approach its termination;
