“I don’t know much about her family,” observed Mr. Linden one day, in the course of a gossip at the office, “but she moves in very respectable society.  Tom met her at the Slades’; but I do know she has something like thirty-five thousand pounds in the funds.  The instant I was informed how matters stood with the young folk, I, as a matter of common sense and business, asked the mother, Mrs. Arnold, for a reference to her banker or solicitor—­there being no doubt that a woman and a minor would be in lawyers’ leading-strings—­and she referred me to Messrs. Dobson of Chancery Lane.  You know the Dobsons?”

“Perfectly,—­what was the reply?”

“That Catherine Arnold, when she came of age—­it wants but a very short time of that now—­would be entitled to the capital of thirty-four thousand seven hundred pounds, bequeathed by an uncle, and now lodged in the funds in the names of the trustees, Crowther & Jenkins, of Leadenhall Street, by whom the interest on that sum was regularly paid, half-yearly, through the Messrs. Dobson, for the maintenance and education of the heiress.  A common-sense, business-like letter in every respect, and extremely satisfactory; and as soon as he pleases, after Catherine Arnold comes of age, and into actual possession of her fortune, Tom may have her, with my blessing over the bargain.”

I dined at Laurel Villa, Fulham, about two months after this conversation, and Linden and I found ourselves alone over the dessert—­the young people having gone out for a stroll, attracted doubtless by the gay aspect of the Thames, which flows past the miniature grounds attached to the villa.  Never had I seen Mr. Linden in so gay, so mirthful a mood.

“Pass the decanter,” he exclaimed, the instant the door had closed upon Tom and his fiancee.  “Pass the decanter, Sharp; I have news for you, my boy, now they are gone.”

“Indeed! and what may the news be?”

“Fill a bumper for yourself, and I’ll give you a toast.  Here’s to the health and prosperity of the proprietor of the Holmford estate; and may he live a thousand years, and one over!—­Hip—­hip—­hurra!”

He swallowed his glass of wine, and then, in his intensity of glee, laughed himself purple.

“You needn’t stare so,” he said, as soon as he had partially recovered breath; “I am the proprietor of the Holmford property—­bought it for fifty-six thousand pounds of that young scant-grace and spendthrift, Palliser—­fifteen thousand pounds less than what it cost him, with the outlay he has made upon it.  Signed, sealed, delivered, paid for yesterday.  Ha! ha! ho!  Leave John Linden alone for a bargain!  It’s worth seventy thousand pounds if it’s worth a shilling.  I say,” continued he, after a renewed spasm of exuberant mirth, “not a word about it to anybody—­mind!  I promised Palliser, who is quietly packing up to be off to Italy, or Australia, or Constantinople, or the devil—­all of them, perhaps, in succession—­not to mention a