At the London terminus, the young gentleman got into a cabriolet, and took his way to a small quiet hotel in Cork-street, and remained thinking during the evening a great deal more of Mr. Scriptolemus Bond and his sayings and doings, than of anything else on earth, except Rose Tracy. It was not that the prospect of making rapidly large sums of money by the speculations of the day had any great effect upon him, although it must be owned that such hopes would have been very attractive in conjunction with that bright image of Rose Tracy, had it not been for certain prejudices of habit and education. But he had a higher flying ambition; he longed not only to win wealth for Rose Tracy's sake, but to win it with distinction, in the straightforward, open paths of personal exertion. He did not wish that his marriage with her should be brought about like the denouement of a third-rate French comedy, by a lucky hit upon the Bourse. It was the words which Mr. Bond had spoken regarding the large speculations of Mr. Tracy which surprised and somewhat alarmed him. He knew well that the railroad mania was the fever of the day, that it affected every rank and every profession, that neither sex and no age but infancy was free; but he was sorry to find that Rose's father was infected with the disease in so serious a form. What might be the consequences of a mistake in such a course, to her he loved best! How great was the probability of a mistake on the part of a man in Mr. Tracy's position! He was removed from all sources of immediate information; he had few means of ascertaining the feasibility of the schemes in which he engaged; he had no means of ascertaining the characters of those with whom he was associated. Young as he was, Chandos saw dangers great and probable in such a course; and not knowing the almost omnipotent power of a popular passion over the minds of men, he could not conceive how a person of Mr. Tracy's sense, blessed with affluence, in need of nothing, with but two daughters to succeed to wealth already great, could yield himself to such infatuation.