What Mrs.Easton saw as a friend, with her good mother-wit, this man saw in a moment as an enemy, viz., that this new combination dwarfed the L20,000 altogether.

Monckton had no idea that his unknown antagonist Nurse Easton had married the pair, but the very attachment, as the chatter-box of the Dun Cow described it, was a bitter pill to him.

"Who could have foreseen this ?" said he.

"It's devilish." We did not ourselves intend our readers to feel it so, or we would not have spent so much time over it.

But as regards that one adjective, Mr.Monckton is a better authority than we are.