Mr. Lisle had no relatives at Watley, and the only individual with whom he was on terms of personal intimacy, was Mr. Peter Sowerby, an attorney of the place, who had for many years transacted all his business.

He then said with a firmer voice, "I shall be glad if you will step to Mr. Sowerby, and tell him I am too unwell to see him this evening.

I shall not be observed in the dark," sharply rejoined Mr. Lisle; "and you, Caleb, must keep my secret from every body, especially from Sowerby.

It was quite dark the next evening when Mr. Lisle returned; and so well had he managed, that Mr. Sowerby, who paid his usual visit about half an hour afterwards, had evidently heard nothing of the suspicious absence of his esteemed client from Watley.

Caleb Jennings tremblingly summoned the house-servant and the landlady, and was still confusedly pondering the broken sentences uttered by the dying man, when Mr. Sowerby hurriedly arrived.

Sowerby had emptied the chest of drawers of every valuable it contained; and unless he had missed the secret receptacle Mr. Lisle had spoken of, the deceased's intentions, whatever they might have been, were clearly defeated.

"Oh, yes," said Sowerby, who was watching the sale; "the buyer may have all it contains over his bargain, and much good may it do him."

Nothing occurred for about a fortnight after Caleb's return to disquiet him, and he had begun to feel tolerably sure that his discovery of the notes would remain unsuspected, when, one afternoon, the sudden and impetuous entrance of Mr. Sowerby into his stall caused him to jump up from his seat with surprise and alarm.

Keep the money, I tell you; but give up the papersdocumentsor I'll transport you!" shouted Sowerby with reviving fury.

This scene of alternate violence and cajolery lasted nearly an hour; and then Sowerby rushed from the house as if pursued by the furies, and leaving his auditor in a state of thorough bewilderment and dismay.

As soon as it was light the next morning, Mr. Sowerby was again with him.

" Sowerby's face assumed as Caleb spoke, a ferocious expression.

The affair made a great noise in the place; and Caleb's conduct being very generally approved, a subscription was set on foot to defray the cost of defending the actionone Hayling, a rival attorney to Sowerby, having asserted that the words used by the proprietor of the chest of drawers at the sale barred his claim to the money found in them.

This wise gentleman was intrusted with the defence; and strange to say, the jurya common onespite of the direction of the judge returned a verdict for the defendant, upon the ground that Sowerby's jocular or sneering remark amounted to a serious, valid leave and license to sell two hundred pounds for five pounds ten shillings!

Sowerby obtained, as a matter of course, a rule for a new trial; and a fresh action was brought.

He told Jennings that in his opinion it would be better that he should give in to Sowerby's whim, who only wanted the drawers in order to comply with the testator's wishes.

A few days after this conversation it was ascertained that Hayling was to succeed to Sowerby's business, the latter gentleman being about to retire upon the fortune bequeathed him by Mr. Lisle.

"A very curious affair, upon my word," remarked Mr. Flint, as soon as Caleb had unburdened himself of the story of his woes and cares; "and in my opinion by no means explainable by Sowerby's anxiety to fulfill the testator's wishes.

" With this view Flint looked over the papers Caleb had brought, and found the declaration was in trovera manifest errorthe notes never admittedly having been in Sowerby's actual possession.

Sowerby persevered, and a fresh action was instituted against the unhappy shoe-mender.

So utterly overcrowed and disconsolate was poor Caleb, that he determined to give up the drawers which was all Sowerby even now required, and so wash his hands of the unfortunate business.

and so is Sowerby: and he knows too, that it is so cunningly contrived as to be undiscoverable, except by a person in the secret, which he no doubt at first imagined Caleb to be.

The odd mode of packing away a deed of such importance, with no assignable motive for doing so, except the needless awe with which Sowerby was said to have inspired his feeble-spirited client, together with what Caleb had said of the shattered state of the deceased's mind after the interview with Mrs. Warner's daughter, suggested fears that Sowerby might dispute, and perhaps successfully, the validity of this last will.

The odd mode of packing away a deed of such importance, with no assignable motive for doing so, except the needless awe with which Sowerby was said to have inspired his feeble-spirited client, together with what Caleb had said of the shattered state of the deceased's mind after the interview with Mrs. Warner's daughter, suggested fears that Sowerby might dispute, and perhaps successfully, the validity of this last will.

Prom infirmity of purpose, or from having subsequently determined on a personal interview, the letter was not posted; and Sowerby subsequently discovered it, together with a memorandum of the numbers of the bank-notes found by Caleb in the secret drawerthe eccentric gentleman appears to have had quite a mania for such hiding-placesof a writing-desk.