Colonel Morris to give Miss Blake a third quarter's rent--in other
words, fifty pounds more, and each side to pay its own costs.

When this decision was finally arrived at, Mr. Craven's face was a
study. Full well he knew on whom would fall the costs of one side. He
saw in prophetic vision the fifty pounds passing out of his hands into
those of Miss Blake, but no revelation was vouchsafed on the subject of
loans unpaid, of costs out of pocket, or costs at all. After we left
court he employed himself, I fancy, for the remainder of the afternoon
in making mental calculations of how much poorer a man Mrs. Elmsdale's
memory, and the Uninhabited House had left him; and, upon the whole, the
arithmetical problem could not have proved satisfactory when solved.

The judge complimented everyone upon the compromise effected. It was
honourable in every way, and creditable to all parties concerned, but
the jury evidently were somewhat dissatisfied at the turn affairs had
taken, while the witnesses were like to rend Colonel Morris asunder.

"They had come, at great inconvenience to themselves, to expose the
tactics of that Blake woman and her solicitor," so they said; "and they
thought the affair ought not to have been hushed up."

As for the audience, they murmured openly. They received the statement
that the case was over, with groans, hisses, and other marks of
disapproval, and we heard comments on the matter uttered by disappointed
spectators all the way up Parliament Street, till we arrived at that
point where we left the main thoroughfare, in order to strike across to
Buckingham Street.

There--where Pepys once lived--we betook ourselves to our books and