May God bless her, and grant her happiness, and that's the worst I wish her." The baronet, in the course of that evening, was sitting in his dining-room alone, a bottle of Madeira before him, for indeed it is necessary to say, that although unsocial and inhospitable, he nevertheless indulged pretty freely in wine.

He appeared moody, and gulped down the Madeira as a man who wished either to sustain his mind against care, or absolutely to drown memory, and probably the force of conscience.

At length, with a flushed face, and a voice made more deep and stern by his potations, and the reflections they excited, he rang the bell, and in a moment the butler appeared.
"Is Gillespie in the house, Gibson ?" "Yes, sir." "Send him up." In a few minutes Gillespie entered; and indeed it would be difficult to see a more ferocious-looking ruffian than this scoundrel who was groom to the baronet.

Fame, or scandal, or truth, as the case may be, had settled the relations between Sir Thomas and him, not merely as those of master and servant, but as those of father and son.

Be this as it may, however, the similarity of figure and feature was so extraordinary, that the inference could be considered by no means surprising.
"Tom," said the baronet, "I suppose there is a Bible in the house ?" "I can't say, sir," replied the ruffian.