feel the gnaw of his accustomed pains, Jasper now betook himself to Poddon Place. The house was still unclosed; and it was not till Jasper's knock had been pretty often repeated that the bolts were withdrawn from the door and Bridgett Greggs appeared. "Oh, it is you, Mr. Losely," she said, with much sullenness, but with no apparent surprise. "Mistress thought you would come while she was away; and I'm to get you the bedroom you had, over the stationer's, six years ago, if you like it. You are to take your meals here, and have the best of everything; that's mistress's orders."
"Oh, Mrs. Crane is out of town," said Jasper, much relieved; "where has she gone?"
"I don't know."
"When will she be back?"
"In a few days; so she told me. Will you walk in and have breakfast? Mistress said there was to be always plenty in the house—you might come at any moment. Please scrape your feet."
Jasper heavily mounted into the drawing-room, and impatiently waited the substantial refreshments which were soon placed before him. The room looked unaltered, as if he had left it but the day before—the prim book-shelves—the empty bird-cage—the broken lute—the patent easy-chair—the foot-stool—the sofa, which had been added to the original furniture for his express comfort, in the days when he was first adopted as a son—nay, on the hearth-rug the very slippers, on the back of the chair the very dressing-gown, graciously worn by him while yet the fairness of his form justified a fond respect for it.
For that day he was contented with the negative luxury of complete repose; the more so as, in every attempt to move, he felt the same numbness of limb as that with which he had woke, accompanied by a kind of painful weight at the back of the head, and at the junction which the great seat of intelligence forms at the spine with the great main-spring of force; and, withal, a reluctance to stir, and a more than usual inclination to doze. But the next day, though these unpleasant sensations continued, his impatience of thought and hate of solitude made him anxious to go forth and seek some distraction. No distraction left to him but the gambling-table—no companions but fellow-victims in that sucking whirlpool. Well, he knew a low gaming-house, open all day as all night. Wishing to add somewhat to the miserable remains of the £1 borrowed on the horse, that made all his capital, he asked Bridgett, indifferently, to oblige him with two or three sovereigns; if she had them not,
