
Finding the Lady Dowager alone, Mr. Balance told her that he came vested with authority to restore the rightful Lord Hazard to his title and estate,

which information the lady affected at first not to understand, and afterwards to treat with great contempt; but being told that Mr. Tadpole was in custody, and had made an ample confession, she seemed greatly shocked. Catching however at every straw, she endeavoured still to stem that torrent which seemed ready to engulph her, nor would acknowledge any thing; till at length, being told that the sum of Mr. Tadpole's confession was that he had been legally married to her ten years, that consequently her subsequent marriage with Lord Hazard was illegal, her children illegitimate, and, of course, that no bar stood between Charles and the possession of his title and fortune, she acted a part something in the same style in which we were sometime ago so amused with the vagaries of Mrs. O'Shocknesy.
Now the fact was that Mr. Tadpole was not in custody, nor had he made any confession. He was only kept out of the way by one of Kiddy's cute manoovres, as he called it, who, to be plain, having been sometime an accessary, and at length a principal, in Emma's plots, suggested the properest mode of carrying this one into effect; for, said Kiddy,
'if we attack the rum squire, he will be peery and prevaricative, but if we whiddle a little to ma'am, though she is as fly as Satan,

guilt will fly in her face, the pearls will trickle, and we shall have her as snug as be damned.—Lord forgive me for uttering such a word.'

Mr. Tadpole, as had been concerted, in due time made his appearance. He bounced and flew about, but being convinced, by incontrovertible documents, that he was completely discovered, became at length tame, and threw himself on our hero's mercy, who put a finish to the business, by assigning Mr. Tadpole and his lady, for the present, that residence he had taken for Figgins and himself, and assuring them that though he should enter into a severe scrutiny of all their conduct relative to the management of the estate, since it had been in their hands, yet, on account of his brother's children, the justice he should be obliged to use, should be tempered with as much mercy as the nature of such a case would admit.
Here let me, for the sake of truth, relate a most
