A girl who takes the sharpest people unawares by using such a capacity as this to help her own objects in private life, and who sharpens that capacity by a determination to fight her way to her own purpose, which has beaten down everything before it, up to this time--is a girl who tries an experiment in deception, new enough and dangerous enough to lead, one way or the other, to very serious results.

This is my conviction, founded on a large experience in the art of imposing on my fellow-creatures.

I say of my fair relative's enterprise what I never said or thought of it till I introduced myself to the inside of her box.

The chances for and against her winning the fight for her lost fortune are now so evenly balanced that I cannot for the life of me see on which side the scale inclines.
All I can discern is, that it will, to a dead certainty, turn one way or the other on the day when she passes Noel Vanstone's doors in disguise.
Which way do my interests point now?
Upon my honor, I don't know.
_Five o'clock._--I have effected a masterly compromise; I have decided on turning myself into a Jack-o n-both-sides.
By to-day's post I have dispatched to London an anonymous letter for M r.

Noel Vanstone.