WYLDER'S HAJVD.
27
self into the natural solution that the creature had got on
my bed, and lay, as I have been told they will, upon my
throat, and so, all the rest had followed.
Not being given to the fear of larvae and lemures, and
also knowing that a mistake is easily committed in a great
house like that, and that my visitor might have made one,
I grew drowsy in a little while, and soon fell asleep again.
In the morning Mark Wylder was early upon the
ground. He had quite slept off what he would have called
the nonsense of last night, and was very keen upon settle-
ments, consols, mortgages, jointures, and all that dry but
momentous lore.
I find a note in my diary of that day: — " From half-
past ten o'clock until two with Mark Wylder and Mr. Lar-
kin, the lawyer, in the study — dull work — over papers
and title — Lord Chelford with us now and then to lend
a helping hand."
Lawyer Larkin, though he made our work lighter —
did not make our business, to me at least, any pleasanter.
Wylder thought him a clever man; Lord Chelford, a most
honorable one; yet there came to me by instinct an un-
pleasant feeling about him. It was not in any defined way
— I did not fancy that he was machinating, for instance,
any sort of mischief in the business before us — but I had
a notion that he was not quite what he pretended.
Perhaps his personnel prejudiced me — though I could
not quite say why. He was a tall, lank man — rather
long of limb, long of head, and gaunt of face. He wanted
teeth at both sides, and there was rather a skull-like cavi-
ty when he smiled — which was pretty often. His eyes
were small and reddish, as if accustomed to cry; and
when everything went smoothly were dull and dove-like,
but when things crossed or excited him, which occurred
when his own pocket or plans were concerned, they grew