“Well, ‘fall’ and ‘violently’ are two words that I should never have associated with his actions at any time of life. But I should have said that he was a man not likely to form a very passionate attachment to any woman who did not satisfy his refinement of taste, which is exquisitely truthful when applied to poems and statues, but a little too classically perfect for just appreciation of flesh and blood, at least in that sex which is so charming that every defect in it is a shock on the _beau ideal_.” “Nevertheless,” said Lady Gertrude, after acknowledging, with a gracious smile, the somewhat old-fashioned gallantry conveyed in my observations—“nevertheless, Percival has loved deeply and fervently, and, what may seem to you strange, has been crossed in his affections.” “Strange! Alas! in love nothing is strange. No one is _loved_ for his merits any more than for his fortune or rank; but men, and women too, are _married_ for their merits, and still more for their rank and their fortune. I can imagine, therefore, though with difficulty, a girl wooed by Percival Tracey not returning his love, but I cannot conceive her refusing his hand. How was it?” “You see how I am confiding in you. But you are almost the only friend of his youth whom Percival has invited as his guest; and your evident appreciation of his worth at once opens my heart to you. In the course of that lengthened absence from England—on the eve of which you took leave of him nearly thirty years ago—Percival formed a close friendship with a fellow-traveller in the East: Percival considers that to the courage, presence of mind, and devotion of this gentleman, a few years younger than himself, he owed his life in some encounter with robbers. Mr Gerrard (that is this friend’s name) was poor and without a profession. When Percival was about to return to Europe, he tried in vain to persuade Mr Gerrard to accompany him—meaning, though he did not say so, to exert such interest with Ministers as he possessed, to obtain for Gerrard some honourable opening in the public service. The young man refused, and declared his intention of settling permanently at Cairo. Percival, in the course of his remonstrances, discovered that the cause of this self-exile was a hopeless attachment, which had destroyed all other objects of ambition in Gerrard’s life, and soured him with the world itself. He did not, however, mention the name of the lady, nor the reasons which had deprived his affection of hope. Well, Percival left him at Cairo, and travelled back into Europe. At a German spa he became acquainted with an Irish peer who had run out his fortune, been compelled to sell his estates, and was living upon a small annuity allowed to him either by his creditors or his relations; a man very clever, very accomplished, not of very high principle, and sanguine of bettering his own position, and regaining the luxuries to which he had been accustomed, through some brilliant marriage, which the beauty of