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look much better if he made a clean shave of it, and told him quite seriously that Eda hated to see a chap with such an awful lot of beard. Jove, Sir! the next day he came down scraped to the quick-you never saw such a guy as he looked. Of course, my uncle chaffed him within an inch of his life; and upon the whole, the end of his visit, to use an original expression of Mrs. Gamp's, had all the effect of early gooseberries' upon him.

"Old Gregory left us about a week since. He is a good old boy, after all, and turned out much more of a trump than I took him for when I met him at Homburg. I expect he has taken an immense fancy for you. They say he is as rich as Croesus, and I wouldn't mind wagering a trifle that he leaves you a good pot of money when he croaks. By the bye, talking of money, what a go it was Gerard Winter absconding, owing, as the report goes, thirty or forty thousand pound. I hear, but I hope there's no truth in it, he has let you in for no end of a lot. Some

1

body told me you had left your rooms in the Albany, and were completely sown up. I asked old Stick-in-the-mud, who was writing to you, whether he had heard about it. If he did know anything, he kept it dark. There was another report that you were 'coffee-milling care and sorrow with a noseadapted thumb,' down in shire; but whether to sell your place or live there, I couldn't hear. Let us hear from you soon, old fellow, whether these reports are true or not. You know, if you want rooms while you are changing, mine are yours,' as the Spaniards say, to make any use of them you like, for I shan't be up till the end of the

season.

"Ever yours very sincerely,

"ARTHUR LONGVALE."

The next was from Mr. Gregory, written on his passage through London. It expressed regrets at not finding Pierce in town, and informed him that the writer was obliged to

leave for the country, where magisterial business, and the management of his estate, would detain him for several months. He begged Pierce to come and see him when he got tired of London. He had no inducement to offer beyond the perfect quiet of a lonely house and a hearty welcome. He hoped if they did not shortly meet, that Pierce would write word to say how his affairs prospered. The letter concluded with encouraging sympathy, and with many sincere wishes for his young friend's happiness.

A third was an invitation to a thé dansante, at the Dowager Lady Pippledem's. A fourth

was from Lady Pumpton.

"Dear Mr. More,

"We have been in London nearly a fortnight; why have you not been near us? I am so exhausted with our two months' scramble on the continent, that I feel it will take a whole London season to resuscitate me. Pumpton hated going abroad before we started,

and only went, I suppose, for my sake. He has come back more bored than ever. I wish you would come and enliven us. Two or three agreeable people dine here to-morrow; will you make a fourth? We are going to the play so if you cannot come to dinner, come to our box in the evening. I know you despise balls; but if you did care to go, Mrs. gives one on Wednesday; all the world is to be there. I can invite you if you choose.

"Yours very truly,

"ARABELLA PUMPTON."

The fifth letter contained two closelywritten sheets of foolscap. Like all the others,

it was dated near a week back.

signature, but it needed none.

It bore no

More recog

nized the handwriting, and the contents.

spoke for themselves.

VOL. III.

с

CHAPTER II.

"COULD I have guessed that he who snatched me from the terrors of starvation was the same whom I knew to be endangered by the machinations of my own bitterest enemy, I might have convinced you that my former warning by letter, was not a mere suspicion, to be treated, as you appear to have treated it, with neglect. Again I write, not only because you have proved my best friend, but because the life which you were the providential means of saving, is now de

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