"Samuel Meynell was as good a fellow as ever breathed," he said; "but he was too fond of the tavern. There were some very nice taverns round about Aldersgate-street in those days; and you see, sir, the times were stirring times, and folks liked to get together and talk over the day's news, with a pipe of tobacco and a glass of their favourite liquor, all in a sociable way. Poor Sam Meynell took a little too much of his favourite liquor; and when the young woman that he had been keeping company with—Miss Dobberly of Jewin-street—jilted him and married a wholesale butcher in Newgate Market, who was old enough to be her father, Sam took to drinking, and neglected his business. One day he came to me and said, 'I've sold the business, Tony,'—for it was Sam and Tony with us, you see, sir,—'and I'm off to France.' This was soon after the battle of Waterloo; and many folks had a fancy for going over to France now that they'd seen the back of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was generally alluded to in those days by the name of monster or tiger, and was understood to make his chief diet off frogs. Well, sir, we were all of us very much surprised at Sam's going to foreign parts; but as he'd always been wild, it was only looked upon as a part of his wildness, and we weren't so much surprised to hear a year or two afterwards that he'd drunk himself to death upon cheap brandy—odyvee as they call it, poor ignorant creatures—at Calais."

"He died at Calais?"

"Yes," replied the old man; "I forget who brought the news home, but I remember hearing it. Poor Sam Meynell died and was buried amongst the Mossoos."

"You are sure he was buried at Calais?"

"Yes, as sure as I can be of anything. Travelling was no easy matter in those days, and in foreign parts there was nothing but diligences, which I've heard say were the laziest-going vehicles ever invented. There was no one to bring poor Sam's remains back to England, for his mother was dead, and his two sisters were settled somewhere down in Yorkshire."

In Yorkshire! I am afraid I looked rather sheepish when Mr. Sparsfield senior mentioned this particular county, for my thoughts took wing and were with Charlotte Halliday before the word had well escaped his lips.

"Miss Meynell settled in Yorkshire, did she?" I asked.

"Yes, she married some one in the farming way down there. Her mother was a Yorkshirewoman, and she and her sister went visiting among her mother's relations, and never came back to London. One of them married, the other died a spinster."

"Do you remember the name of the man she married?"

"No," replied Mr. Sparsfield, "I can't say that I do."

"Do you remember the name of the place she went to—the town or village, or whatever it was?"