and they walked along the shore together towards the Jolly Dolphin.

"Yes," said Chaffin, surveying the shipyard with the house and garden adjoining by the light of the moon, which was nearly full-" Yes, you have a nice place here; but you will soon be built in. This is the direction in which all the chief improvements will be made. The shipyard will be quite out of place here after a year or two."

"It will last my time, I dare say," said Dean.

"I'll tell you now what I should do if I were in your place," said Chaffin. "I should look out for a bit of ground at the other end of the town; you could get a bit there cheap, and it would answer your purpose quite as well as this, or better. Then you could sell this for a lot of money, and clear a good round sum by the exchange."

"But I don't want to sell," said Dean. "I won't sell, I tell you."

"Yes you will," Chaffin replied. "Wait a bit; you'll have to shift your shipyard anyhow. Why, there will be a terrace all along in front of it very likely."

"They can't turn me out," said Dean; "it's my freehold."

"An Act of Parliament can do anything. That's why I am advising you to be prepared for it, and to look out for another site in time."

They walked on together until they came to Mr. Chaffin's inn.

Mr. Chaffin took his companion by the arm and led him only half resisting into the inn parlour. He had resolved to show this uncouth shipbuilder-fellow, as he called him mentallya good example of hospitality. He had allowed the brandy

bottle to be locked up after the first glass; now he should have as many glasses as he liked at Mr. Chaffin's expense, to teach him better manners. That would be rendering good for evil, the contractor thought.

"What will you take?" Mr. Chaffin asked, as soon as they were seated.

Dean would have again refused, but after a feeble protest submitted to Mr. Chaffin's importunity. It is needless to describe the scene that followed. At a late hour Joshua Dean left the Jolly Dolphin with an uncertain step, and went towards home; his eyes were bent upon the ground, his hat slouched over his face, and he paused from time to time to steady himself against a rail or a wall. Sufficiently sober to be conscious of his own degradation, he shrank from the shame of approaching his own door, where, as he well knew, his sister would be watching for him, and loitered by the way altogether miserable. Mr. Chaffin looked after him with mingled feelings of pity and contempt. Why should he be so overcome by a glass or two? he thought. He had taken a great deal more himself, and was none the worse for it. It was a great mark of weakness to be so easily upset. Mr. Chaffin expressed this opinion to Mr. Brimmer, who also came to the door to witness his customer's departure.

"Yes," said Brimmer; "some men can't stand nothing. Now that there poor fellow will be so upset by what he has took, that he won't get over it for a week or ten days, or maybe a fortnight."

"You don't mean that?" said Chaffin, with a slight feeling of remorse.

"I don't mean that it will make him downright ill, sir; but to-morrow morning he'll be here again as soon as I'm open; and he'll go on, nobody knows how long. He can't help it. It's some months, though, now since he tasted a drop of spirits,

and I wondered to see him here to-night. He ought to learn to drink in moderation. It's men like him as brings us publicans into disfavour. Not as he ever takes a great deal; a little is sufficient to upset him. You could see that yourself, sir, couldn't you?"

Yes, Mr. Chaffin could see it; Mr. Chaffin had seen it after the first glass at the inn; but he had gone on urging him to take more, nevertheless; he could not be inhospitable, it was not his fault if other men did not know when to stop. He was not answerable for other men. With this sop to his conscience he wished Mr. Brimmer good night, and went upstairs to bed, well satisfied on the whole with the day's proceedings. He had found water, and was confident that there would be plenty of it wherever it was properly sought for. The Sandy Frith Company would go on and prosper. He would keep his eyes on Dean's bit of freehold, and entertained but little doubt of being able to secure it for himself by-and-by. He should make a lot of money by the place, he said to himself as he turned into bed. Yes; he had done a good day's work.

The next morning he went by an early train to London; but before a week had elapsed he was again upon the spot. A great number of workmen followed him and were employed immediately upon different parts of the estate, some sinking wells, others carting away soil, and others preparing materials for building. Mr. Chaffin completed his arrangements for renting the stone quarry, and began to get stone there in large quantities; and sites were laid out all over the little town, with boards to signify how they were intended to be occupied. These important works required Mr. Chaffin's frequent attendance at Sandy Frith, and he missed no opportunity of seeing Joshua Dean, who would often spend an evening with him at the Jolly Dolphin. Mr. Brimmer's evil augury had been realised, and the poor man seemed to be under a spell: despis

ing himself for his weakness, he appeared to be unable to resist the intolerable craving for stimulants which came over him at all hours of the day, and for several weeks together he was either wretchedly depressed or unnaturally elated. Lucy could do nothing with him. He would listen to her eager remonstrances with shame and contrition, and hold out perhaps for a day or two against temptation, but would give way at last, and run to greater excess than before. Mr. Chaffin seemed to think it was no affair of his. The poor man never showed himself to him in a state of absolute intoxication, and the contractor might have thought he was doing him a kindness by offering him just one glass, when he saw him depressed and apparently pining for it. At all events "he could not be inhospitable," that was his plea; and Joshua Dean yielded to the tempter again and again, even while loathing himself and resolving with all his power of will to yield no more.

Meantime business went on badly at the shipyard; Dean had to find money for materials and wages, and the work that he had on hand remained unfinished, or if sent away, was returned as unsatisfactory. Many conversations took place as to the sale of the shipyard, and Dean began to listen to the proposal. It would be a good thing, he thought, to break away from the place, and begin life again somewhere else, away from the reach of temptation-as if such a thing were possible. Mr. Chaffin offered him a good price for the property; he could make provision for his mother and sister, he thought, and go abroad somewhere, where there was no Jolly Dolphin and no Chaffin. He might ship as a seaman on board some temperance vessel. These and similar plans were turned over in his confused and troubled mind one after another, all springing from the same source, self-blame and self-dissatisfaction. The result of all was that, one evening when Dean and the contractor were together at the Jolly Dolphin, pen and ink were called for, and

Mr. Brimmer was invited to come into the parlour and drink a glass of his own brandy and to sign his name as a witness to a contract or agreement for sale between Joshua Dean of the one part, vendor, and Daniel Chaffin of the other, purchaser, whereby the former agreed to sell and the latter to buy and purchase all that plot and parcel of land with the buildings and tenements thereon, called the shipyard, situate and being at Sandy Frith, etc., etc., at and for the sum of etc., etc.

"It is a deal of money," Mr. Chaffin said, with a grave face, as he folded up the document, and put it in his pocket—“ a deal of money, Mr. Dean."

The vendor did not show any signs of exultation. He knew too well what he had done, but was hardly able to review all the conditions and consequences so critically as might have been desired. "Yes," he thought to himself, "it is a good price, but I have sold my birthright." There was a bottle upon the table, and he helped himself again to its contents before leaving the inn. He did not intend to tell his sister what he had done; it would make no difference to her, he argued. He was to continue to occupy the house and shipyard at a moderate rent for a year or two at least. Mr. Chaffin looked to the future; he did not want to do anything with the property until the new buildings in its vicinity should have added something considerable to its value. He had bought it wholesale, as it were, and hoped to sell it retail by the yard or foot by-and-by. In the meantime Joshua Dean was to occupy it as before, and the sale was to be a secret. Mr. Brimmer even was not supposed to know the contents of the deed which he had witnessed, though he must have had a shrewd suspicion of it when he saw the money payment which formed the deposit handed over, and the receipt endorsed.

"Yes," Mr. Chaffin repeated, when he was alone, "it is a deal of money; but if he takes the bulk of it in Sandy Frith