“For my part,” said Zoe, blushing pink at her boldness in advancing an opinion on so large a matter, “I think these comparisons are rather narrow-minded. What have we to do with bad people, male or female? A good man is good, and a good woman is good. Still, I do think that women have greater hearts to love, and men, perhaps, greater hearts for friendship:” then, blushing roseate, “even in the short time we have been here we have seen two gentlemen give up pleasure for self-denying friendship. Lord Uxmoor gave us all up for a sick friend. Mr. Severne did more, perhaps; for he lost that divine singer. You will never hear her now, Mr. Severne.” The Maitland gun went off: “A sick friend! Mr. Severne? Ha, ha, ha! You silly girl, he has got no sick friend. He was at the gaming-table. That was his sick friend.” It was an effective discharge. It winged a duck or two. It killed, as follows: the tranquillity--the good humor--and the content of the little party. Severne started, and stared, and lost color, and then cast at Vizard a venomous look never seen on his face before; for he naturally concluded that Vizard had betrayed him. Zoe was amazed, looked instantly at Severne, saw it was true, and turned pale at his evident discomfiture. Her lover had been guilty of deceit--mean and rather heartless deceit. Even Fanny winced at the pointblank denunciation of a young man, who was himself polite to everybody. She would have done it in a very different way--insinuations, innuendo, etc. “They have found you out, old fellow,” said Vizard, merrily; “but you need not look as if you had robbed a church. Hang it all! a fellow has got a right to gamble, if he chooses. Anyway, he paid for his whistle; for he lost three hundred pounds.” “Three hundred pounds!” cried the terrible old maid. “Where ever did he get them to lose?” Severne divined that he had nothing to gain by fiction here; so he said, sullenly, “I got them from Vizard; but I gave him value for them.” “You need not publish our private transactions, Ned,” said Vizard. “Miss Maitland, this is really not in your department.” “Oh, yes, it is,” said she; “and so you'll find.” This pertinacity looked like defiance. Vizard rose from his chair, bowed ironically, with the air of a man not disposed for a hot argument. “In that case--with permission--I'll withdraw to my veranda and, in that [he struck a light] peaceful--[here he took a suck] shade--” “You will meditate on the charms of Ina Klosking.” Vizard received this poisoned arrow in the small of the back, as he was sauntering out. He turned like a shot, as if a man had struck him, and, for a single moment, he looked downright terrible and wonderfully unlike the easy-going Harrington Vizard. But he soon recovered himself. “What! you listen, do you?” said he; and turned contemptuously on his heel without another word.