"I mean to say this--I'll tell the whole story--Sir Richard has ruined himself at play; take that as a fact to start with. He is literally ruined. His uncle is away; but I don't think any man in his senses would think of paying his losses for him. He turns, therefore, naturally, to the more amiable and less arithmetical sex, and means to invite, in turn, a series of fair and affluent admirers to undertake, by means of suitable settlements, that interesting office for him." "I don't think you like him, Mr. Longcluse; is not that a story a little too like 'The Merry Wives of Windsor?'" "It is quite certain I don't like him, and it is quite certain," added Mr. Longcluse, with one of his cold little laughs, "that if I did like him, I should not tell the story; but it is also certain that the story is, in all its parts, strictly fact. If you permit me the pleasure of a call in two or three days, you will tell me you no longer doubt it." Mr. Longcluse was looking down as he said that with a gentle and smiling significance. The young lady blushed a little, and then more intensely, as he spoke, and looking through the window, asked with a laugh,-- "But how shall we know whether he really speaks to Lady May?" "Possibly by his marrying her," laughed Mr. Longcluse. "He certainly will if he can, unless he is caught and married on the way to her house." "He was a little unfortunate in showing you his list, wasn't he?" said Grace Maubray. "I did not say that. If there had been any, the least, confidence, nothing on earth could have induced me to divulge it. We are not even, at present, on speaking terms. He had the coolness to send a Mr. Blount, who transacts all Mr. David Arden's affairs, to ask me to become his security, Mr. Arden being away; and by way of inducing me to do so, he disclosed, with the coarseness which is the essence of business, the matrimonial schemes which are to recoup, within a few days, the losses of the roulette, the whist-table, or the dice-box." "Oh! Mr. Blount, I'm told, is a very honest man." "Quite so; particularly accurate, and I don't think anything on earth would induce him to tell an untruth," testifies Mr. Longcluse. After a little pause, Miss Maubray laughs. "One certainly does learn," she said, "something new every day. Could any one have fancied a _gentleman_ descending to so gross a meanness?" "Everybody is a gentleman now-a-days," remarked Mr. Longcluse with a smile; "but every one is not a hero--they give way, more or less, under temptation. Those who stand the test of the crucible and the furnace are seldom met with."