I therefore set to work to do what I ought to have done at starting--I hunted in all the parish registers to be found within a certain radius of such and such localities.

I began with Clerkenwell, in which neighbourhood our friend spent such happy years, according to that pragmatical epistle of Mrs.Rebecca's; but after hunting in all the mouldy old churches within a mile of St.
John's-gate, I was no nearer arriving at any record of Matthew Haygarth's existence.

So I turned my back upon Clerkenwell, and went southward to the neighbourhood of the Marshalsea, where Mistress Molly's father was at one time immured, and whence I thought it very probable Mistress Molly had started on her career as a matron.

This time my guess was a lucky one.

After hunting the registers of St.
Olave's, St.Saviour's, and St.George's, and after the expenditure of more shillings in donations to sextons than I care to remember, I at last lighted on a document which I consider worth three thousand pounds to you--and--a very decent sum of money to me." "I wonder what colour our hair will be when we touch that money ?" said Valentine meditatively.