a
102 THE BUBBLE BURST.

seen walking late at night with that good-for-nothing
Bannerman ; they had hired gigs for her and driven
about the country with her, and spent money upon
her without end.—There was a bunch of flowers
that somebody had given her—no doubt one of them
—which cost fifteen shillings, and which Mary
Parker, the butter-buyer, had brought by order from
a gardener’s in Birmingham. It was a sin and a
shame that they were allowed to remain in the town,
for thus these young men might be led into practices
that might ruin them for life.

As he entered he found his aunt Joanna with her
bonnet and cloak on, and with her servant dressed
also, and with a lantern in her hand. Joanna, late
as it was, full of zeal for the good name of her nephew,
was setting out to Evans's, to make him recall his
words withy regard to her nephew taking out the
players in gigs. She knew, she said, that Evans was
wrong, and those who were to blame should bear the
blame, and not the innocent. It was in vain that
Reynolds made light of the matter as regarded him-
self; she was bent upon vindicating him, and he,
half in anger and half with miserable apprehension
‘or his friend, whose cause he felt as if he must
espouse, sat down with his aunt Dorothy to wait
the other’s return.

On her return she came fraught with new tidings.
It was Williams who had hired the gig; he had
taken a tribe of players with him to Alton, had
treated them at the inn, where they had all got
drunk, and in driving home like so many mad
folks Williams had thrown down his horse, ruined
it for ever, and broken the gig into the bargain.

* This comes,” said Miss Kendrick, “of Mr.