don't think you need trouble yourself about him.
I've heard some mercantile friends of mine speak
of him as quite a well-known character in the
City, and one who might have bettered himself
years ago, if he had chosen."

"You don't mean to say that?" asked the
cynical man, brightening up considerably. "He
never even hinted that to me. Why, he must
have been staying on against his own interest,
in order to look after my affairs. But no, that's
impossible—"

"The dear, good old man," said Gabrielle.

"No, no; it s impossible, I tell you," cried
the sceptic. "What can his motive have been?"

"Why, attachment to your service, of
course," answered Mrs. Penmore.

"Impossible," replied the other. "The
world is not constituted like that."

"Some part of the world is not, I dare say,"
replied the lady, "but I am quite sure that
good old man is."

"I wish to Heaven I could think so," said
Lethwaite; "but I daren't. The finding out
that one has been duped, after giving any one
credit for a long course of disinterested conduct,
is so very dreadful."

"I had rather be duped over and over again,"
said Gilbert, "than never be able to allow
myself the luxury of belief."

"Gilbert," said his wife, reproachfully, "I
thought you had given him up. You know that
he hates us and all his fellow-creatures, and
himself too, and glories in it."

Lethwaite laughed. "Not so bad as that,"
he said, "and it's no new doctrine. Some
ancient writer has said that he challenges the
world to produce, from the time of the creation
down to that moment when he spoke, one single
action the exciting cause of which should be
altogether pure. Now, what do you think of
that statement? I think it is one of the
Fathers who says it."

"The Fathers may say what they like," said
Gilbert. "My firm conviction is, that it won't
do to pry into motives and exciting causes. To
peer into the defects of what is, on the whole, a
fine character, is much such an act of madness
as if I should take you and clap you in the
sunlight, and then examine your countenance with
a microscope. What specks and blotches and
defects of every sort and kind I should discover—"

"Come, I say," interposed the subject of this
imaginary examination.

"Oh yes, but I should find such flaws,"
continued Penmore, "in the finest skin that ever
covered a human anatomy; while as to going
below the skin, do consider what ugly things
we should come to then; yet this is what you
want to do. You want to take the skin off one's
mind and dissect that; and I tell you, again
and again, that it won't do."

There is no telling how much longer Gilbert
might have gone on trying to drive his friend
out of his intrenchments, had not the domestic
attached to the service of Miss Carrington—
Jane Cantanker by name—made known her
presence in the room by a protesting and
injured cough. She had knocked, and entered
unobserved.

"If you please, Mrs. Pingmore," she said,
taking advantage of a pause in Gilbert's flowing
eloquence, "my mistress would be glad if you
would take the trouble to step up-stairs for half
a moment, as she have something which she
wishes to say very particular."

And with that, and a prolonged stare at Mr.
Lethwaite, whom she looked upon as a worthless
and dissolute character, and hated accordingly,
the beautiful maiden left the apartment.

It is impossible to describe the chilling effect
of this interruption upon our little party. They
were under a cloud directly, and silence
descended upon them from that moment. To have
continued their discussion would have been
impossible.

"I suppose I must go," said the devoted Mrs.
Penmore at last, and speaking in a whisper.

"Poor thing," said her husband, "it all falls
upon you."

"Shall I go?" asked Lethwaite, laughing.
"Look here, Mrs. Penmore; give it to her."

Gabrielle smiled. "It's she who gives it to
me," she said. All this time, she was lingering
near the door, putting off the mauvais quart
d'heure. Suddenly, there came a sharp ring at
the bell up-stairs. Mrs. Penmore heard it, and
vanished.

The two men sat there together and waited.

"You talk about my affairs and my difficulties,"
said Lethwaite, after a while, "but what
are they to yours? I have only myself to think
of. You are differently situated."

"The two ends are alarmingly far apart,"
answered Penmore, trying to make a joke of it,
"and the bringing them together is a gymnastic
exercise requiring considerable strength and
activity. By-the-by, I have not thanked you
for giving me that chance with the attorneys.
What a failure it was."

"The vulgar brutes," replied our partisan.
"How I hated them. I should have liked to
kick them down stairs."

"Assaults are expensive luxuries, and you
can't afford them now."

"But tell me, Penmore," said our cynic,
"you are not discouraged?"

"No, not yet," replied the other. "But why
don't you go in for it, old man, now you have your
way to make? You have no foreign accent?"

"Oh, out of my way altogether. The drum's
the thing for my intellectual calibre, and that
taxes it to the uttermost, I can tell you."

Then these two lapsed once more into silence.
They had been talking in a light tone, and treating
things, that were serious enough, as jokes;
and yet, if their inmost feelings at that moment
could have been subjected to inspection, it is
much to be questioned whether any great amount
of light-heartedness would have been discoverable.
They had each been making an effort, and
now for a little while each gave it up, and gave
way to a curious sad feeling—a sort of blight,
which seemed to have entered the room with