undutiful—altogether bad. At last his father
disinherited him; but he softened when he was
dying and left him well off, though not nearly
so well off as Miss Havisham. Take another
glass of wine, and excuse my mentioning that
society as a body does not expect one to be so
strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass,
as to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on
one's nose."

I had been doing this, in an excess of attention
to his recital. I thanked him and apologised.
He said, " Not at all," and resumed.

"Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and
you may suppose was looked after as a great
match. Her half-brother had now ample means
again, but what with debts and what with new
madness wasted them most fearfully again.
There were stronger differences between him
and her than there had been between him and
his father, and it is suspected that he cherished
a deep and mortal grudge against her, as having
influenced the father's anger. Now, I come to
the cruel part of the story—merely breaking
off, my dear Handel, to remark that a dinner-
napkin will not go into a tumbler."

Why I was trying to pack mine into my
tumbler, I am wholly unable to say. I only
know that I found myself, with a perseverance
worthy of a much better cause, making the
most strenuous exertions to compress it within
those limits. Again I thanked him and apologised,
and again he said in the cheerfullest
manner, " Not at all, I am sure!" and
resumed.

"There appeared upon the scene—say at the
races, or the public balls, or anywhere else you
like—a certain man, who made love to Miss
Havisham. I never saw him, for this happened
five-and-twenty years ago (before you and I
were, Handel), but I have heard my father
mention that he was a showy-man, and the kind of
man for the purpose. But that he was not to
be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken
for a gentleman, my father most strongly
asseverates; because it is a principle of his that no
man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever
was, since the world began, a true gentleman in
manner. He says, no varnish can hide the
grain of the wood; and the more varnish you
put on, the more the grain will express itself.
Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely,
and professed to be devoted to her. I believe
she had not shown much susceptibility up to that
time; but all she possessed, certainly came out
then, and she passionately loved him. There is
no doubt that she perfectly idolised him. He
practised on her affection in that systematic
way, that he got great sums of money from her,
and he induced her to buy her brother out of a
share in the brewery (which had been weakly
left him by his father) at an immense price, on
the plea that when he was her husband he must
hold and manage it all. Your guardian was not
at that time in Miss Havisham's councils, and
she was too haughty and too much in love, to
be advised by any one. Her relations were poor
and scheming, with the exception of my father;
he was poor enough, but not time-serving or
jealous. The only independent one among them,
he warned her that she was doing too much for
this man, and was placing herself too unreservedly
in his power. She took the first opportunity of
angrily ordering my father out of the house, in
his presence, and my father has never seen her
since."

I thought of her having said " Matthew will
come and see me at last when I am laid dead
upon that table;" and I asked Herbert whether
his father was so inveterate against her?

"It's not that," said he, "but she charged
him in the presence of her intended husband with
being disappointed in the hope of fawning upon
her for his own advancement, and, if he were
to go to her now, it would look true—even to
him—and even to her. To return to the man
and make an end of him. The marriage day
was fixed, the wedding dresses were bought, the
wedding tour was planned out, the wedding
guests were invited. The day came, but not
the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter—"

" Which she received," I struck in, " when
she was dressing for her marriage? At twenty
minutes to nine?"

"At the hour and minute," said Herbert,
nodding, " at which she afterwards stopped all
the clocks. What was in it, further than that it
most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can't
tell you, because I don't know. When she
recovered from a bad illness that she had, she laid
the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and
she has never since looked upon the light of
day."

"Is that all the story?" I asked, after
considering it.

"All I know of it; and indeed I only know
so much, through piecing it out for myself; for
my father always avoids it, and, even when Miss
Havisham invited me to go there, told me no
more of it than it was absolutely requisite I
should understand. But I have forgotten one
thing. It has been supposed that the man to
whom she gave her misplaced confidence, acted
throughout in concert with her half-brother;
that it was a conspiracy between them; and
that they shared the profits."

"I wonder he didn't marry her and get all
the property," said I.

"He may have been married already, and her
cruel mortification may have been a part of her
half-brother's scheme," said Herbert. " Mind!
I don't know that."

"What became of the two men?" I asked,
again considering the subject.

"They fell into deeper shame and degradation
—if there can be deeper—and ruin."

"Are they alive now?"

"I don't know."

"You said just now, that Estella was not
related to Miss Havisham, but adopted. When
adopted?"

Herbert shrugged his shoulders. " There
has always been an Estella, since I have heard
of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And
now Handel," said he, finally throwing off the