the racket, and shall be only too glad to be
called upon to do so, as some slight way of
atoning tor having led you into what cannot be
looked upon by any one, I am afraid, as a
reputable life. I won't say any more on this
head, because there is no need. You will
know that I am in earnest in what I have
said, and you will receive the fifty pounds
which I have enclosed herein in the spirit
in which they are sent — that of true friendship.
You will be a great gun some day, if
you fulfil the promise made for you by those
who ought to know about it; and then you
will repay me. Meanwhile, depend on it that
any draft of yours on me will be duly honoured.

"And so you are not coming back to London
for some time? It seems an ungenerous thing
in a friend to say, but upon my soul I think it
the wisest thing you can do is to remain abroad,
and widen your knowledge of life. You have
youth and health, at your time of life the powers
of observation are at their freshest and strongest,
all you will want is money, and that you shan't
want, if you accede to the suggestion I have
just made. You will store your mind in experience,
you will see all sorts and varieties of
men, and as you have nothing particular to bind
you to England, you could thoroughly enjoy your
freedom, and return with a valuable stock of
ideas for the future benefit of the British reading
public. Allez toujours, la jeunesse! which,
under its familiar translation of ' Go it while
you're young!' is the best advice I can give
you, George, my dear boy. During your
absence, you will have shaken off all your old
associations, and who knows but that the great
bashaw, your step-father, may clasp you to his
bosom, and leave all his acres to his dearly
beloved step-son, G. D.? Only one thing! You
must not forget Harry, and you must not forget
me! If all works right, you will find us very
differently situated from what you have ever
known us, and you won't be ashamed to recognise
us as friends. You would laugh if you
could see me now, emphatically a ' City man,'
wearing Oxford mixture trousers and carrying
a shabby fat umbrella, which is an infallible
sign of wealth, eating chops in the middle of the
day, solemnly rebuking my young clerks for
late attendance at the office, and comporting
myself generally with the greatest gravity and
decorum. And to think that we once used to
' back the caster,' and have, in our time, held
point, quint, and quatorze. Tell it not in Gath!
' By advices last received, the produce of the
mines has been twenty-two thousand oitavas, the
gain whereof is, &c. &c.' That's the style now!

"Harriet is well, and, as ever, my right hand.
To see her at work over the books at night, one
would think she had been born in .the Brazils,
and had never heard of anything but silver mines.
She sends kindest regards, and is fully of my
opinion as to the expediency of your staying
away from London. No news of Deane; but
that does not surprise me. His association
with us was entirely one of concurrence, and he
always talked of himself as a wanderer —- a bird
of passage. I suppose he did not give you any
hint of his probable movements on the day of
the dinner, when I had the ill-luck to offend him
by not coming? No one ever knew where
he lived, or how, so I can't make any inquiries.
However, it's very little matter.

"And now I must make an end of this long
story. Good-bye, my dear George. All sorts of
luck, and jollity, and happiness attend you, but
in the enjoyment of them all don't forget the
pecuniary proposition I have made to you, and
think sometimes kindly of
                             " Your sincere
                                       " STEWART ROUTH."

A little roll of paper had dropped from the
letter when George opened it. He picked it up,
and found two Bank of England notes for twenty
pounds, and one for ten pounds.

It is no discredit to George Dallas to avow
that when he had finished the perusal of this
quaint epistle, and when he looked at its
enclosure, he had a swelling in his throat, a
quivering in the muscles of his mouth, and thick
heavy tears in his eyes. He was very young,
you see, and very impressionable, swaying hither
and thither with the wind and the stream,
unstable as water, and with very little power of
adhering to any determination, however right
and laudable it seemed at the first blush. There
are few of us—in early youth, at all events, let
us trust — who are so clear-headed, and far-seeing,
and right-hearted, as to be able to do exactly
what Duty prescribes to us — the shutting out all
promptings of   inclination! Depend upon it the
good boys in the children's story-books, those
juvenile patterns who went unwaveringly to the
Sunday-school, shutting their eyes to the queen-
cakes and toffy so temptingly displayed on the
roadside, and who were adamant in the matter
of telling a fib, though by so doing they might
have saved their schoolfellow a flogging—
depend upon it they turned out, for the most
part, very bad men, who robbed the orphans
and ground the faces of the widows. George
Dallas was but a man, very warm-hearted, very
impressionable, and when he read Stewart
Routh's letter he repented of his harshness to
his friend, and accused himself of having been
precipitate and ungenerous. Here was the
blackleg, the sharper, the gambler, actually
returning some of his legitimate winnings, and
placing his purse at his acquaintance's disposal,
while his step-father ———- But then that would not
bear thinking about! Besides, his step-father
was Clare's uncle; no kindness of Routh's would
ever enable him, George, to make progress in
that direction, and therefore ——— And yet it
was deuced kind in Routh to be so thoughtful.
The money came so opportunely, too, just when,
what with his Hague excursion and his
purchases, he had spent the balance of the sum
derived from the sale of the bracelet, and it
would have been scarcely decent to ask for an
advance from The Mercury office or The Piccadilly
people. But it was a great thing that
Routh advised him to keep away from Eng-