"She would have been more gentle with me
than you are," he said, with a half-reproachful
sigh.

"Yes, yes—she would have felt only for
you—I happen to feel for her."

"Which I never did."

"Never—"

"You say true," said he musing.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

"Julian Winstanley——"

"He who won the steeple-chase yesterday?
Who, in the name of goodness, is Julian
Winstanley? A name of some pretension; yet
nobody seems to know where he came from."

"Oh, dear, that is quite a mistake. I beg
your pardon—everybody knows where he came
from. This bird of gay plumage was hatched
in a dusky hole and corner of the city; where
his grandfather made a fabulous fortune by
gambling in the funds."

"He is as handsome a young fellow as ever
was hatched from a muckworm."

"He is a careless, dashing prodigal, whatever
else; and I never look at him without
thinking of Hogarth's picture of the 'Miser's
Heir.' What say you to him, Blake, with
your considering face? Come, out with your
wisdom! You can make a sermon out of a
stone, you know."

"May be so. A stone might furnish matter
for discourse, as well as other things; but I am
not in the humour for preaching to-day. I
can't help being sorry for the scapegrace."

"So like you, Contradiction! Sorry for
him! And, pray, what for?—because he is the
handsomest, most aristocratical-looking person
one almost ever met with—because he is really
clever, and can do whatever he pleases in no
time (might have taken a double-first at Oxford
easily, Penrose says, if he would)—or because
he has got countless heaps of gold at his
banker's; and, nobody to ask him a why or a
wherefore; may do, in all things, just what he
likes—or because he can drink like a fish, dance
like Vestris, ride like Chiffney; be up all night
and about all day, and never tire, be never
out of spirits, never dull? Harry Blake!
Who'll come and hear Harry Blake? He is
going to give his reasons, why a man who has
every good thing of the world is most especially
to be pitied."

"I am going to do no such thing. The
reasons are too obvious. I deal not in
truisms."

"Well, all I know is, that he won the steeplechase
yesterday, and to-day he beat Pincent,
the champion, at billiards. To-morrow he goes
to the ball at Bicester; and see if he does not
beat us all at dancing there, and bear away
the belle, whoever the belle may be—though
the blood of a stockbroker do run in his
veins."

"His blood may be as good as another's, for
aught I know," said the philosopher; "but
I doubt whether the rearing be."

"It is the blood, depend upon it. Blake,
you are quite right," said a pale, affected
young man, who stood by, and was grandson
to an earl; "the blood—these upstarts are
vulgar, irremediably, do what they will."

"That not quite," said Harry Blake. "I
have seen as great cubs as ever walked behind
a plough-tail who would call cousins with the
Conqueror, Warndale. But a something there
is of difference after all; and, in my opinion,
it lies in the tradition. Wealth and distinction
are like old wine, the better for keeping.
Time adds a value, mellows, gives a certain
body—an inappreciable something.
Newly-acquired wealth and distinction is like new
wine—trashy. I rather pity the man who
possesses them, therefore."

"And I do not"—"And I do not,"—and
"A fig for your philosophy!" resounded from
all sides of the table.

The philosopher looked on with his quiet
smile, and added:

"I do not mean to say that I should pity
any of those here present in such a case, for
we all know, by experience, that new wine, in
any quantity, has no effect upon them; never
renders their heads unsteady—was never
known to do so. But you must allow me to
pity Julian Winstanley; for I think his wits
are somewhat straying, and I fear that he has
already mounted upon that high horse which
gallops down the road to ruin."

And so away they all went to the ball at
Bicester that night. Most of them were
somewhat more elaborately dressed than the
occasion required. Julian Winstanley was,
undoubtedly. It had been his mother's
injunction, never to spare expense in anything
that regarded his toilette; and dutifully he
obeyed it.

I am not going to give you a description of
his dress. Fancy everything most expensive;
fancy, as far as a natural good taste would
allow, every habiliment chosen with reference
to its costliness; and behold him waltzing with
a very pretty girl, who is, upon her side,
exquisitely dressed also. She wears the fairest
of white tulles, and the richest of white satins,
and has a bouquet of the flowers from the
choicest of French artists in her bosom, and
another negligently thrown across her robe.
Hair of remarkable beauty, arranged in a way
to display its profusion, and the very expensive
ornaments with which it is adorned.

Although the young lady—who is the
daughter of a very fashionable and extravagant
man, celebrated in the hunting and
racing world—is well known to be portionless;
yet she is the object of general attraction;—
a thing to be noted as not what usually
happens to young ladies without sixpences, in
these expensive times. But it is the caprice
of fashion, and fashion is all-powerful. So
Julian, who is only starting in the career of
extravagance, and in its golden age of restless
profusion, and far removed, as yet, from that
iron age which usually succeeds it—namely,