she had done so. But this possibility was put an end to at once by Sir Philip, who, pre-eminently a public man, deemed it right to silence suspicion. He did so in a quiet and quite conclusive way. Sir Philip's own character stood high, but Lord Grahame Falconer had the advantage of years and of a life against the honourable propriety of which no whisper was ever heard. A Nestor of the clubs and a man of the highest family and fashion, his life had been a sort of model to all the young men who aspired to be worthy of the rank and name of gentleman. His honour, during a long life, was unstained and chivalrous.

To this nobleman, as a private friend, Sir Philip laid bare his domestic wrongs; and his lordship, after an inquiry, gave his opinion that the step his friend had taken was quite justified by the circumstances of the case, and that he had acted worthily and kindly towards his wife.

There was no impugning the verdict, although the grounds on which it rested were not revealed. What Lord Grahame said must be right; and therefore poor Lady Warden, without further inquiry, was put under the social ban. Apparently she acquiesced in the sentence. After the separation she appeared no more in London. society, nor was she heard of in Blankshire nor at Eveslay.

It was after this domestic catastrophe that Algernon was consigned to the care of Sir Philip. The experience which Sir Philip had undergone will to some extent explain his conduct to that young gentleman. In his own experience Sir Philip knew what the result of an aristocratic education had been, and he was too perspicuous not to see that the unlimited command of money he had at all times possessed had not conduced to his advantage. The result, in his case, had been years of isolation and ennui, broken up for a little by the deceitful lustre of an imprudent passion, the effect of which had been the utter shipwreck of his life. No wonder that he went to the other extreme, and thought that it was, after all, best for the lad to bring him up on somewhat Spartan principles-to accustom him to self-denial when young-and to throw him as much as possible on his own resources. He acted, therefore, from no want of generosity, or even affection, towards Darcy; on the contrary, at the very first he had taken a warm interest in him, both on his father's account and his own; for the bright, sunny boy, by some hidden connection, had endeared himself to the worn-out, disappointed man, and, coming to him at the time of his bereavement and disgrace, had monopolised all the affection remaining of which his heart was capable. But this affection was not outwardly manifested; on the contrary, the more he felt he liked the lad, the more perversely did he hide any external indications of it. He feared his love would be disastrous, and he wished that Darcy should

believe that he had only himself to rely on. These were the considerations which had induced Sir Philip to send the boy to Norton Grammar School, and to keep towards him an anxious incognito.

Meantime, Sir Philip himself withdrew from society. Proud in the extreme, he shrank morbidly from sympathy, but he still devoted himself to public business, and for some time maintained his position in the House of Commons; but his principles became harder, and he lost sympathy with the public. The severest dogmas of political economy received his support, without any of those mitigating considerations which can alone reconcile the pure science to the popular mind. Gradually, therefore, he came to occupy a position of comparative isolation, followed only by those few resolute politicians who accept logical conclusions however far they may lead, but with none of that personal following which in general gathers round eminent men; and at last he withdrew from public life altogether.

In the aristocracy of the county he still maintained a high position, for his expenditure was liberal, and his hospitality, if rarer and somewhat more stately than before, was on a magnificent scale. Besides, Sir Philip was the largest proprietor of the county, and if he did not conciliate the affections of his tenantry, as he had done during his married life, he commanded their votes even more absolutely than before. Thus, in sullen state, ran the current of Sir Philip's life, from the time when he separated from Lady Alicia up to the day when he received notice of Algernon Darcy's majority, and surprised his old friends by an invitation to dine with him at the Hyperion Club.

CHAPTER II.

ALGERNON DARCY, the unconscious hero of the fête, was a fine, tall young man, with dark auburn hair, which swept in careless locks over a lofty, open forehead. His brown eyes had a pleasant expression, and his mouth had that moqueur contour which implies a keen sense of humour, high spirits, and a habit of hearty laughter. His cheeks had the glow of health. Not one mark of care could be distinguished on his face, and, so far as external appearances could enable one to judge, the ascetic training to which Sir Philip had subjected him had been beneficial. Certainly it had not had any prejudicial effect on his manners, which, if not distingué, were simple and easy.

Darcy was the youngest of the party; Lord Grahame Falconer the eldest. Every feature about the veteran was characteristic.

Tall, with a slight stoop, the venerable age of eighty lent a quiet dignity to a figure and features which at one time must have been exquisite. You saw at once he had been all his life a man of fashion; but, looking to the somewhat receding forehead and to the time-marked lines on his face, you would have hesitated before you admitted that he was a man of intellect. And in doing so you would have been right; for his lordship owed his position-one of urquestioned supremacy in society, and one of considerable political influence to a constitutional delicacy of tact, which prevented him saying anything offensive to any one, and made him quickly apprehensive and instinctively indignant at any impropriety on the part of others. He was a man of few words, but being also of few ideas and of no imagination, there was a sententiousness in his utterances which took people by surprise. Of the very old school, there was a looseness, or rather a latitude, in his conversation which smacked of the Regency, and occasionally jarred on the nerves of younger men-perhaps the more so because his lordship, with a vanity not uncommon in men of mere fashion, aimed still at the character of a man of bonnes fortunes, though his few remaining contemporaries coincided in saying that his life had been as blameless and innocent, so far as they knew, in his youth, as it certainly was now in his old age. Those who laughed at his harmless foibles averred that he took more pains to acquire a bad character than others did to acquire a good one, but that he had made no progress at all in the object of his solicitude.

Sir Hugh Grey, a somewhat battered-looking individual, inclining considerably to embonpoint, with a face which must have been handsome but for an atrocious squint in his right eye, was a gentleman whom it was particularly unsafe to offend. His powers of satire were considerable, and his mastery of private history gave him materials for its exercise which his victims did not enjoy.

Sir Lawrence Baynam, a gentleman of considerable attainments, of which he was, perhaps, unconscious, was also of the party, which besides, embraced other gentlemen, whom it is not necessary further to describe.

Sir Philip astonished all by the graciousness of his manner. The recluse seemed, in his solitude, to have acquired an additional stock of those charms of manner which had rendered him the idol of fashionable society, and he seemed to have lost that cynicism which so often chilled the sympathy of the young and the ardent, whom his brilliant conversation at first attracted.

It is unnecessary to remark that the Master of the Hyperion surpassed, if possible, his reputation, and that the dinner was absolutely perfect.

At such a dinner, conversation at first is an impediment to the

full appreciation of so high a work of art, and it was not till the third course that any one cared to make any observation which could possibly lead to discussion.

Lord Grahame at last broke the silence.

"This is the sort of thing," said he, " for poor fellows like me. We have no expense, no responsibility, and we dine at £20,000 a year. A useful and benevolent dispensation for a man with a younger son's allowance of £500 a year and what he can make by honest industry at short whist."

"It is surprising," said Sir Hugh Gray, "how long one can. continue a younger son. I met a man upwards of sixty lately, who wished to enlist my pity because he was an orphan. But, without questioning, my lord, your title to our commiseration, I admit that no man living has had such experience in dining out as yourself, and, so far as eating goes, you have been the richest among us. State dinners five days a week! The objection to such a life is that you have no time to give dinners in return, so that, if all the world acted like you, no one would get a dinner at all. Possibly it will all be put right in the next world."

"How so?" said Sir Philip.

"Why," replied Sir Hugh, "Falconer has had his good dinners in this world, and, like the rich man, must expect, by-andbye, to be put on the Lazarus allowance of us poor fellows who don't live by dining out. When that adjustment comes his lordship will find a difference."

"As for the next world," said Lord Grahame, "I shall take pot-luck with my neighbours."

"Perhaps," hazarded Sir Lawrence Baynam, "it may be some compensation for dining at home in paradise, that if you went much into society you would meet Gray oftener than you wished. He would be constantly reminding you of your misdeeds in this life, and otherwise exercising those peculiar talents of his which occasionally are not very bearable even in this cool world."

"In the course of making out in the next world the quota of dinners I am short of my share," said Sir Hugh. "I would often meet your brother, Frank Baynam. He had a long arrear to make up, poor fellow!"

Poor Frank Baynam, at no time attractive, was nevertheless eldest son, which, perhaps, accounted for his going hopelessly to the dogs, and disappearing. In consequence, Sir Lawrence reigned dubiously in his stead the possible survivance of Frank being still devoutly believed in by that gentleman's creditors.

"We are getting too theological, I fear," said Sir Philip. Allow me to propose a toast-the toast, gentlemen, of this evening."

C

The guests were all ears. The secret of the modern Timon was to come out at last.

"Gentlemen," said Sir Philip, "I have called you together to introduce to you my ward, Algernon Darcy.-Yes, my boy," said he, turning to Darcy, "this party is in your honour. It is ten years since, on the death of his father, this young gentleman was put under my charge. His father, as gallant a man as ever lived, was a schoolfellow and a dear friend, and I obeyed a message sent to me on his deathbed to take care of his son. I fear he may suppose I fulfilled the obligation after a niggard fashion. Instead of sending him to Eton and Harrow, and then to Oxford, his education has been all but completed in the Grammar School of Norton. But it was not because I grudged the expense that I adopted this course, nor was it for that reason, Darcy, I stinted you in pocket-money. I did it all for your good. Eton and Harrow produce premature men, and I don't like boy-men. I was bred up in that system myself, and at your age life had lost its freshness when it ought but to have been beginning; and this evil I knew was sure to be aggravated and increased if I had provided you with ample resources. Instead of this, I have brought you up after a Spartan fashion, and the world is now all before you to choose. I should have wished to have carried my experiment further. I should have preferred that my ward had his own fortune to make in the world, and I meant to have assisted him only so far as to stimulate his own exertions; and I am confident that in doing so I would have acted a kinder part than if I had made him absolutely independent. I regret I have not been able to carry out my design. Fate has interfered, and I have now to announce to the company and to Darcy that he is very nearly the richest man among

us.

From an unexpected source, which I shall explain hereafter to my young friend, Darcy has acquired a very large fortune. I was made aware of the fact only the other day, and I have selected this, the day of his majority, to apprise him of it. Gentlemen, Darcy is worth £200,000!"

The news was received at first with incredulity, but Sir Philip explained the way in which the inheritance had been left, and as he asserted that all he said was true on his honour, there remained no room for doubt.

The surprise of none was greater than Darcy's. From being, as he supposed, a pauper, he found himself in possession of £10,000 a year. In the very blush of youth, in perfect health, with a mind well cultivated for his years, fresh and untainted by vice, the means of boundless enjoyment was within his reach! What a tumult of ideas crowded on his mind! He listened no longer to the conversation around him, lost in a vain attempt to realise the truth