bought himself out of jail; a lord, or an honourable at least, and was even (I shudder to say) revolving in her mind whether it might not be an excellent thing for her dear Lionel if she could prevail on herself to procure for him the prop and guidance of a distinguished and brilliant father-in-law-rich, noble, evidently good-natured, sensible, attractive. Oh! but the temptation was growing more and more IMMENSE! when suddenly the door opened, and in sprang Lionel, crying out, "Mother, dear, the Colonel has come with me on purpose to-"

He stopped short, staring hard at Jasper Losely. That gentleman advanced a few steps, extending his hand, but came to an abrupt halt on seeing Colonel Morley's figure now filling up the doorway. Not that he feared recognition-the Colonel did not know him by sight, but he knew by sight the Colonel. In his own younger day, when lolling over the rails of Rotten Row, he had enviously noted the leaders of fashion pass by, and Colonel Morley had not escaped his observation. Colonel Morley, indeed, was one of those men who by name and repute are sure to be known to all who, like Jasper Losely, in his youth, would fain know something about that gaudy, babbling, and remorseless world which, like the sun, either vivifies or corrupts, according to the properties of the object on which it shines. Strange to say, it was the mere sight of the real fine gentleman that made the mock fine gentleman shrink and collapse. Though Jasper Losely knew himself to be still called a magnificent man-one of royal Nature's Lifeguardsmen-though confident that from top to toe his habiliments could defy the criticism of the strictest martinet in polite costume, no sooner did that figure-by no means handsome, and clad in garments innocent of buckram, but guilty of wrinkles-appear on the threshold, than Jasper Losely felt small and shabby, as if he had been suddenly reduced to five feet two, and had bought his coat out of an oldclothesman's bag.

Without appearing even to see Mr Losely, the Colonel, in his turn,

as he glided past him towards Mrs Haughton, had, with what is proverbially called the corner of the eye, taken the whole of that impostor's superb personnel into calm survey, had read him through and through, and decided on these two points without the slightest hesitation--" a ladykiller and a sharper."

Quick as breathing had been the effect thus severally produced on Mrs Haughton's visitors, which it has cost so many words to describe, so quick that the Colonel, without any apparent pause of dialogue, has already taken up the sentence Lionel left uncompleted, and says, as he bows over Mrs Haughton's hand, come on purpose to claim acquaintance with an old friend's widow, a young friend's mother."

Mrs HAUGHTON.-"I am sure, Colonel Morley, I am very much flattered. And you, too, knew the poor dear Captain; 'tis so pleasant to think that his old friends come round us now. This gentleman, also, was a particular friend of dear Charles's."

The Colonel had somewhat small eyes, which moved with habitual slowness. He lifted those eyes, let them drop upon Jasper (who still stood in the middle of the room, with one hand still half-extended towards Lionel), and letting the eyes rest there while he spoke, repeated,

"Particular friend of Charles Haughton's the only one of his particular friends whom I never had the honour to see before.”

Jasper, who, whatever his deficiency in other virtues, certainly did not lack courage, made a strong effort at self-possession, and without replying to the Colonel, whose remark had not been directly addressed to himself, said, in his most rollicking tone-"Yes, Mrs Haughton, Charles was my particular friend, but," lifting his eye-glass-"but this gentleman was," dropping the eye-glass negligently, "not in our set, I suppose." Then advancing to Lionel, and seizing his hand, "I must introduce myself-the image of your father, I declare! I was saying to Mrs Haughton how much I should like to see you-proposing to her, just as you came in, that we should go to

the play together. Oh, ma'am, you may trust him to me safely. Young men should see LIFE." Here Jasper tipped Lionel one of those knowing winks with which he was accustomed to delight and ensnare the young friends of Mr Poole, and hurried on: "But in an innocent way, ma'am, such as mothers would approve. We'll fix an evening for it, when I have the honour to call again. Good morning, Mrs Haughton. Your hand again, sir (to Lionel).-Ah, we shall be great friends, I guess! You must let me take you out in my cab-teach you to handle the ribbons, eh? 'Gad, my old friend Charles was a whip. Ha ha! Good day, good day!"

Not a muscle had moved in the Colonel's face during Mr Losely's jovial monologue. But when Jasper had bowed himself out, Mrs Haughton, curtsying, and ringing the bell for the footman to open the streetdoor, the man of the world (and, as man of the world, Colonel Morley was consummate) again raised those small slow eyes-this time towards her face and dropped the words,

"My old friend's particular friend is not bad-looking, Mrs Haughton!" "And so lively and pleasant," returned Mrs Haughton, with a slight rise of colour, but no other sign of embarrassment. "It may be a nice acquaintance for Lionel."

66

"Mother!" cried that ungrateful boy, you are not speaking seriously. I think the man is odious. If he were not my father's friend, I should say he was

What, Lionel?" asked the Colonel, blandly" was what?" "Snobbish, sir."

"Lionel, how dare you!" exclaimed Mrs Haughton. What vulgar words boys do pick up at school, Colonel Morley."

"We must be careful that they do not pick up worse than words when they leave school, my dear madam. You will forgive me, but Mr Darrell has so expressly-of course, with your permission-commended this young gentleman to my responsible care and guidance-so openly confided to me his views and intentions, that perhaps you would do me the very great favour not to force upon him, against his own wishes, the acquaint

VOL. LXXXIII.-NO. DVII.

Mrs Haughton pouted, but kept down her rising temper. The Colonel began to awe her.

By the by," continued the man of the world, "may I inquire the name of my old friend's particular friend?” "His name upon my word I really don't know it. Perhaps he left his card-ring the bell, Lionel."

"You don't know his name, yet you know him, ma'am, and would allow your son to see LIFE under his auspices! I beg you ten thousand pardons; but even ladies the most cautious, mothers the most watchful, are exposed to —"

"Immense temptations--that isto-to

"I understand perfectly, my dear Mrs Haughton."

The footman appeared. "Did that gentleman leave a card?" "No, ma'am."

"Did not you ask his name when he entered?"

"Yes, ma'am, but he said he would announce himself."

When the footman had withdrawn, Mrs Haughton exclaimed piteously, "I have been to blame, Colonel-I see it. But Lionel will tell you how I came to know the gentleman-the gentleman who nearly ran over me, Lionel, and then spoke so kindly about your dear father."

"Oh, that is the person!-I supposed so," cried Lionel, kissing his mother, who was inclined to burst into tears. "I can explain it all now, Colonel Morley. Any one who says a kind word about my father, warms my mother's heart to him at onceis it not so, mother dear?"

"And long be it so," said Colonel Morley, with graceful earnestness; "and may such be my passport to your confidence, Mrs Haughton. Charles was my old schoolfellow-a little boy when I and Darrell were in the sixth form; and, pardon me if I add, that if that gentleman were ever Charles Haughton's particular friend, he could scarcely have been a very wise one. For, unless his appearance greatly belie his years, he must have been little more than a boy when Charles Haughton left Lionel fatherless."

C

Here, in the delicacy of tact, seeing that Mrs Haughton looked ashamed of the subject, and seemed aware of her imprudence, the Colonel

rose, with a request-cheerfully granted-that Lionel might be allowed to come to breakfast with him the next morning.

worse.

Reserving to a later occasion any more detailed description of Colonel Morley, it suffices for the present to say that he was a man of a very fine understanding, as applied to the special world in which he lived. Though no one had a more numerous circle of friends, and though with many of those friends he was on that footing of familiar intimacy which Darrell's active career once, and his rigid seclusion of late, could not have established with any idle denizen of that brilliant society in which Colonel Morley moved and had his being, yet, to Alban Morley's heart (a heart not easily reached), no friend was so dear as Guy Darrell. They had entered Eton on the same day-left it the same day-lodged while there in the same house; and though of very different characters, formed one of those strong, imperishable, brotherly affections which the Fates weave into the very woof of existence.

Darrell's recommendation would have secured to any young protégé Colonel Morley's gracious welcome and invaluable advice. But, both as Darrell's acknowledged kinsman, and as Charles Haughton's son, Lionel called forth his kindliest sentiments, and obtained his most sagacious deliberations. He had already seen the boy several times, before waiting on Mrs Haughton, deeming it would please her to defer his visit until she could receive him in all the glories of Gloucester Place; and he had taken Lionel into high favour, and deemed him worthy of a conspicuous place in the world. Though Darrell in his letter to Colonel Morley had emphatically distinguished the position of Lionel, as a favoured kinsman, from that of a presumptive or even a probable heir, yet the rich man had also added: But I wish him to

take rank as the representative to the Haughtons; and, whatever I may do with the bulk of my fortune, I shall insure to him a liberal independence. The completion of his education, the adequate allowance to him, the choice of a profession, are matters in which I entreat you to act for yourself, as if you were his guardian. I am leaving England-I may be abroad for years." Colonel Morley, in accepting the responsibilities thus pressed on him, brought to bear upon his charge subtle discrimination, as well as conscientious anxiety.

He saw that Lionel's heart was set upon the military profession, and that his power of application seemed lukewarm and desultory when not cheered and concentred by enthusiasm, and would, therefore, fail him if directed to studies which had no immediate reference to the objects of his ambition. The Colonel, accordingly, dismissed the idea of sending him for three years to an University. Alban Morley summed up his theories on the collegiate ordeal in these succinct aphorisms: "Nothing so good as an University education, nor worse than an University without its education. Better throw a youth at once into the wider sphere of a capital provided you there secure to his social life the ordinary checks of good company, the restraints imposed by the presence of decorous women, and men of grave years and dignified repute;-than confine him to the exclusive society of youths of his own age-the age of wild spirits and unreflecting imitation unless he cling to the safeguard, which is found in hard reading, less by the bookknowledge it bestows, than by the serious and preoccupied mind which it abstracts from the coarser temptations."

But Lionel, younger in character than in years, was too boyish as yet to be safely consigned to those trials of tact and temper which await the neophyte who enters on life through the doors of a mess-room. His

pride was too morbid, too much on the alert for offence; his frankness too crude, his spirit too untamed by the insensible discipline of social

commerce.

Quoth the observant Man of the World: "Place his honour in his own keeping, and he will carry it about with him on full cock, to blow off a friend's head or his own before the end of the first month. Huffy-decidedly huffy! And of all causes that disturb regiments, and induce courtmartials-the commonest cause is a huffy lad! Pity! for that youngster has in him the right metal-spirit and talent that should make him a first-rate soldier. It would be time well spent that should join professional studies with that degree of polite culture which gives dignity and cures huffiness. I must get him out of London, out of England-cut him off from his mother's apron-strings, and the particular friends of his poor father who prowl unannounced into the widow's drawing-room. He shall go to Paris-no better place to learn military theories, and be civilised out of huffy dispositions. No doubt my old friend, the chevalier, who has the art strategic at his finger ends, might be induced to take him en pension, direct his studies, and keep him out of harm's way. I can secure to him the entrée into the circles of the rigid old Faubourg St Germain, where manners are best bred, and household ties most respected. Besides, as I am so often at Paris myself, I shall have him under my eye, and a few years there, spent in completing him as man, may bring him nearer to that marshal's baton which every recruit should have in his eye, than if I started him at once a raw boy, unable to take care of himself as an ensign, and unfitted, save by mechanical routine, to take care of others, should he live to buy the grade of a colonel."

The plans thus promptly formed Alban Morley briefly explained to Lionel, when the boy came to break

fast in Curzon Street, requesting him to obtain Mrs Haughton's acquiescence in that exercise of the discretionary powers with which he had been invested by Mr Darrell. To Lionel, the proposition that commended the very studies to which his tastes directed his ambition, and placed his initiation into responsible manhood among scenes bright to his fancy, because new to his experience, seemed of course the perfection of wisdom.

Less readily pleased was poor Mrs Haughton, when her son returned to communicate the arrangement, backing a polite and well-worded letter from the Colonel with his own more artless eloquence. Instantly she flew off on the wing of her "little tempers." "What! her only son taken from her-sent to that horrid Continent, just when she was so respectably settled! What was the good of money if she was to be parted from her boy! Mr Darrell might take the money back if he pleased-she would write and tell him so. Colonel Morley had no feeling; and she was shocked to think Lionel was in such unnatural hands. She saw very plainly that he no longer cared for her a serpent's tooth, &c. &c." But as soon as the burst was over, the sky cleared, and Mrs Haughton became penitent and sensible. Then her grief for Lionel's loss was diverted by preparations for his departure. There was his wardrobe to see to-a patent portmanteau to purchase and to fill. And, all done, the last evening mother and son spent together, though painful at the moment, it would be happiness for both hereafter to recall! Their hands clasped in each otherher head leaning on his young shoulder-her tears kissed so soothingly away. And soft words of kindly motherly counsel, sweet promises of filial performance. Happy, thrice happy, as an after remembrance, be the final parting between hopeful son and fearful parent, at the foot of that mystic bridge which starts from the threshold of Home-lost in the dimness of the far-opposing shore !-bridge over which goes the boy who will never return but as the man.

Jasper Losely is beginning to be hard up! The infallible calculation at rouge-et-noir has carried off all that capital which had accumulated from the savings of the young gentlemen whom Dolly Poole had contributed to his exchequer. Poole himself is beset by duns, and pathetically observes "that he has lost three stone in weight, and that he believes the calves to his legs are gone to enlarge his liver."

Jasper is compelled to put down his cabriolet-to discharge his groom -to retire from his fashionable lodgings; and just when the prospect even of a dinner becomes dim, he bethinks himself of Arabella Crane, and remembers that she promised him £5, nay £10, which are still due from her. He calls he is received like the prodigal son. Nay, to his own surprise, he finds Mrs Crane has made her house much more inviting the drawing-rooms are cleaned up; the addition of a few easy articles of furniture gives them quite a comfortable air. She herself has improved in costume-though her favourite colour still remains irongrey. She informs Jasper that she fully expected him-that these preparations are in his honour-that she has engaged a very good cook-that she hopes he will dine with her when not better engaged-in short, lets him feel himself at home in Podden Place.

he had behaved to her, she could not but feel a sincere regard for him--a deep interest in his fate. He ought still to make a brilliant marriagedid that idea not occur to him? She might help him there with her woman's wit. In short," said Mrs Crane, pinching her lips; “in short, Jasper, I feel for you as a mother. Look on me as such!"

That pure and affectionate notion wonderfully tickled, and egregiously delighted Jasper Losely. "Look on you as a mother! I will," said he with emphasis. "Best of creatures!" And though in his own mind he had not a doubt that she still adored him (not as a mother) he believed it was a disinterested, devoted adoration, such as the beautiful brute really had inspired more than once in his abominable life. Accordingly, he moved into the neighbourhood of Podden Place, contenting himself with a secondfloor bedroom in a house recommended to him by Mrs Crane, and taking his meals at his adopted mother's with filial familiarity. She expressed a desire to make Mr Poole's acquaintance-Jasper hastened to present that worthy. Mrs Crane invited Samuel Dolly to dine one day, to sup the next; she lent him £3 to redeem his dress-coat from pawn, and she gave him medicaments for the relief of his headache.

But Mrs Crane quickly and candidly hastened to dispel his ungenerous apprehensions. She had given up," she said, "all ideas so preposterous love and wedlock were equally out of her mind. But ill as

her fingers closed over it-lightly as the fisherman's over the captivated trout. And whatever her generosity, it was not carried to imprudence. She just gave to Jasper enough to bring him within her power-she had no idea of ruining herself by larger supplies-she concealed from him the extent of her income (which was in chief part derived from house-rents), the amount of her savings, even the name of her banker. And if he carried off to the rouge-et-noir table the coins he obtained from her, and came for