and a face with a military cap and grey
moustaches looking from the window. In an instant
he was waving his Malacca cane to the coachman,
and was striding up to the window.

It was Whitaker, the colonel who had been
equerry to his Sailor Dook years and years ago,
and who said, or was made to say, many things
in the course of Mr. Tilney's conversations.

"My goodness!" said Mr. Tilney, describing
"the providential character" of this meeting,
"how wonderfully Providence tempers the wind.
Often and often the Dook said, when he had to
go to the City shows and the like, 'Let Tilney
and Whitaker come. Hang it! I'll have
no one else.' He went his way, and I went mine.
Thus it is, my dear, all our ends are shaped——"

"Do talk sense," said Mrs. Tilney, with much
irreverence, "and have done with those absurd
speeches. Were his sons with him?"

"He has no sons," said Mr. Tilney, sadly.
"Providence—that is to say," added Mr. Tilney,
correcting himself hastily, and recollecting the
caution, "he never had any. One of the best
men I ever knew."

"Do keep all that for your own friends, and
talk like a Christian. Where is he staying?"

"With the Leighton-Buzzards," said Mr.
Tilney, a little abashed. "But only think, he
is at the Horse Guards now—D.A.G., my dear,
enormous influence, e-normous, my dear.
Always had a grateful nature, too, my dear. The
Dook said, 'If there is a man who sticks to his
friends like wax, that man is Bob Whitaker.'"

"Well, and what did he say to you, and what
did you make of him?" said Mrs. Tilney, with
great interest.

"He said," replied Mr. Tilney, looking round
mysteriously, "'why are you in this hole, Dick?
You are at the back of Godspeed,' or words to
that effect. ' They should have done something
for you long ago; or have they now?' said Bob
Whitaker."
"Well, and what did you say to that," said
Mrs. Tilney, with unjustifiable impatience.
"Some folly about Providence or other."

"I said," Mr. Tilney answered, in a burst of
profaneness, "that I was literally rotting away
in this infernal hole, and that you were rotting
away. That it was a confounded shame the court
party had treated me so, leaving me to get on in
my old days in this way, after all my slavery to
that good-for-nothing Dook. The most selfish
creature as was ever born." (This was a way
to speak of his late Majesty!)

"And what did he say?" said Mrs. Tilney,
much pleased at this burst.

"O, he said it was a curst shame too, and
that everything he got he had to screw out of
'em."

"What have I always told you? but you
never listen. There's a man of sense!"

"He's got his nephew with him," said Mr.
Tilney, suddenly.

"His heir?" said Mrs. Tilney.

"I be-lieve so," said Mr. Tilney.

"And why couldn't you tell me that? There's
the way. We've to do everything for ourselves.
And now, what did you make out? Will he do
anything for you?"

"I am sure," said Tilney, enthusiastically,
"he'd lend me twenty pounds to-morrow. Bob
Whitaker never refuses a friend he cared for."

"Twenty pounds!" said Mrs. Tilney, with
scorn. "On your peril ask him, Mr. Tilney.
I see it all. Leave it to me for once, do now.
We must have them to dinner. The nephew
must know the girls—he can have his choice.
And you can 'screw,' as you call it, something
out of him. You must get up a nice elegant
dinner. You know the Leighton-Buzzards a
little; ask them. We must do the thing well,
you know."

"Get up a dinner—a dinner?" said Mr. Tilney,
ruefully. " How, my dear? Where,
where?"

"Where! Everywhere, of course," said Mrs.
Tilney, very unreasonably. "You know how to
do that sort of thing; use your wits. Someway,"
she added, enthusiastically, "I feel, if you
strike home in this business, something will
come out of it for the girls; who knows—perhaps
on the very night itself."

"I wish to God there did," said he, mournfully.
"I wish something did turn out for
some of us. And Mrs. Whitaker, we must ask
her. I think he said he had brought her."

Mrs. Tilney's face fell. " O, there's a
mother, is there?" she said.

"Never mind," said he, with sudden alacrity,
"we shall knock out something, and plan a very
nice little dinner. I'll manage it. Yes, I see.
A capital thing for one of them. (Why, Bob
Whitaker and I were like brothers.) Yes, the
very thing; and now I recollect, he was always
mad upon a good dinner."

From that hour it was noticed that Mr. Tilney
soared into a perfect buoyancy of spirits,
and looked forward to the date of the "little
dinner" as a certain deliverance from all their
troubles. That little festive meal was to lead
them out of shade into sunshine. Someway,
too, "the pressure," as he always spoke of it,
seemed to have abated a little. The "duns"
had for a time, perhaps, grown weary
—forborne to trouble him. Just as it had been with
the early days of the bank, as it was with the
dinner, it lifted him into sudden prosperity.
But a change was coming about. One night
he was sitting in his parlour with his family
in a very ancient dressing-gown, about which,
we may be sure, there was a history connected
with the sailor-ducal epoch, and "mapping out,"
as he called it, the little dinner. He had made
several "maps" before this, and had gone on
making them, not through any dissatisfaction
at what he had done, but as a pleasure to
himself for the variety. The family were busy with
some preparations in their own line which had
reference to their portion of the festival. Ada
alone, of all not engaged at any aim of the kind,
sat silent and apart, working patiently.

"I shall look after the management myself,"
said Mr. Tilney. "God bless you! I wouldn't
trust it out of my own hands. Toler wrote it