MR.

GOODGE'S WISDOM.
_Oct.5th_.My dreams last night were haunted by the image of gray-eyed Molly, with her wild loose hair.

She must needs have been a sweet creature; and how she came amongst those prim fishy-eyed men and women with absurd head-gear is much more than I can understand.

That she should mix herself up with Diana Paget, and play _rouge-et-noir_ at Foretdechene in a tucked-up chintz gown and a quilted satin petticoat, in my dreams last night--that I should meet her afterwards in the little stucco temple on the Belgian hills, and stab her to the heart, whereon she changed into Charlotte Halliday--is only in the nature of dreams, and therefore no subject for wonder.
On referring to Sheldon's letter I found that the next people to be looked up were descendants of Brice the lawyer; so I devoted my breakfast-hour to the cultivation of an intimacy with the oldest of the waiters--a very antique specimen of his brotherhood, with a white stubble upon his chin and a tendency to confusion of mind in the matter of forks and spoons.
"Do you know, or have you ever known, an attorney of the name of Brice in this town ?" I asked him.
He rubbed the white stubble contemplatively with his hand, and then gave his poor old head a dejected shake.

I felt at once that I should get very little good out of _him_.
"No," he murmured despondently, "not that I can call to mind." I should like to know what he _could_ call to mind, piteous old meanderer! "And yet you belong to Ullerton, I suppose ?" "Yes; and have belonged to it these seventy-five years, man and boy;" whereby, no doubt, the dreary confusion of the unhappy being's mind.
Figurez donc, mon cher.