Colonel Orpington does not very much mind how much she spends. Through his wife, who was the daughter of his family solicitor, and who died in childbirth a year after their marriage, he had a very large income, every farthing of which he carefully spent. He had nothing to do with the turf; hunted but little, and when he did, generally found other men to mount him; never joined in the afternoon rubbers at the club, and only interested himself in them to the extent of an occasional small bet; kept a good but small stud; had no permanent country place; and during the season entertained well, but neither frequently nor lavishly, and yet managed to get through eight thousand a year. How? Well, the Colonel had his tastes. Though turned fifty years of age, he had not run to flesh; his figure was yet trim and elegant, and his face handsome and eminently "bred"-looking. His hair was still jet-black; and though his moustache, long, sweeping, and carefully trained, was unmistakably grizzled, the colour rather added to the picturesqueness of his appearance. And the Colonel liked to be thought handsome, and elegant, and picturesque; for he was devoted to the sex, and had but little care in life beyond how best to please her who for the time being was the object of his devotion. And yet Colonel Orpington was never seen in any suspicious _solitude à deux_, nor even in the loose-talking, easy-going society in which he mixed was his name ever coupled with any woman's. Old comrades and contemporaries might be seen lurking at the back of shady little boxes on the pit-tier of the theatre, and addressing a presumed form in the corner facing the stage, of which nothing could be seen but a white gleaming arm, a fan, and an opera-glass; but when the Colonel patronised the drama, which was very seldom, he always went with a party among whom were his daughter and his sister, who kept house for him. Sons of old comrades, and other young men with whom he had a casual acquaintance, might lounge across the rails of the Row to speak to the "strange women" on horseback who were just beginning to put in an appearance there; but the Colonel, when he passed them, whether Miss Orpington were with him or not, was always looking straight before him between his horse's ears, and never showed the slightest recognition of their presence. Nor, though living in days when to love your neighbour's wife was a rule pretty generally followed, was Colonel Orpington's name ever mixed up with any of those society intrigues the ignoring of which in public, and the discussion of which in private, affords so much delight to well-bred people. Of good appearance, of perfect manners, and with a voice and address which were singularly insinuating, the Colonel might have availed himself of many _bonnes fortunes_ which would not have fallen in the way of men younger and less discreet; but he purposely neglected the opportunities offered,