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 Angel that evening. I therefore expected his room would be got ready.

Lewis had heard his master propose the arrangement, and therefore had little to say on the present occasion. However, he opened the door and desired me to look in and observe how gloomy it was, the windows opening only into the yard. I entered with a feeling of anxiety, expecting to observe a communication with No. 2; but I breathed more freely on perceiving that though there really was a door between the two rooms, yet the entrance from No. 3, was completely blocked up by a large press. However, jealousy is a dreadful passion, and will rest satisfied with nothing short of mathematical demonstration of the falsehood of what it has once believed or suspected to be true; the press, thought I, might easily have been lifted to the place which it now occupies in the morning; but when I tried to move it, I found that the strength of two men could not lift it. “Very good,” said I, pretending to be inspecting the arrangements of the room with a view to my friend’s comfort; “that press is very well placed, for it prevents the conversation being overheard in the adjoining room.”

“O, sir,” replied Lewis, “there is little danger of that, for there is just such another wardrobe in Miss Florentine’s room; and you may speak as loud as you please, you never could be heard in the next room. But,” he added, with some embarrassment, “I know not how the major will like to be put out of his room this very evening.”

“It cannot be helped, however,” replied I, with no small malignity of feeling. “I will pay for the room from this very day whether Mr Blum comes or not; but I know he is very particular, and if he should not get the very room which I mentioned in my letter to him, he is off,—and that would be no small thing out of your way, Lewis, for he has plenty money, and will be here, at least, once in the year, and is very liberal to the servants.”

“Why, in that case,” replied the disinterested Lewis,