“For law I am too old; politics, perhaps, might suit me; but riches, my dear Ernest--ah, how I long for a good account with my banker!” “Well, patience and hope. Are you are not a rich uncle’s heir?” “I don’t know,” said Ferrers, very dolorously; “the old gentleman has married again, and may have a family.” “Married!--to whom?” “A widow, I hear; I know nothing more, except that she has a child already. So you see she has got into a cursed way of having children. And perhaps, by the time I’m forty, I shall see a whole covey of cherubs flying away with the great Templeton property!” “Ha, ha; your despair sharpens your wit, Lumley; but why not take a leaf out of your uncle’s book, and marry yourself?” “So I will when I can find an heiress. If that is what you meant to say--it is a more sensible suggestion than any I could have supposed to come from a man who writes books, especially poetry: and your advice is not to be despised. For rich I will be; and as the fathers (I don’t mean of the Church, but in Horace) told the rising generation, the first thing is to resolve to be rich, it is only the second thing to consider how.” “Meanwhile, Ferrers, you will be my guest.” “I’ll dine with you to-day; but to-morrow I am off to Fulham, to be introduced to my aunt. Can’t you fancy her?--grey _gros-de-Naples_ gown: gold chain with an eyeglass; rather fat; two pugs, and a parrot! ‘Start not, this is fancy’s sketch!’ I have not yet seen the respectable relative with my physical optics. What shall we have for dinner? Let me choose, you were always a bad caterer.” As Ferrers thus rattled on, Maltravers felt himself growing younger: old times and old adventures crowded fast upon him; and the two friends spent a most agreeable day together. It was only the next morning that Maltravers, in thinking over the various conversations that had passed between them, was forced reluctantly to acknowledge that the inert selfishness of Lumley Ferrers seemed now to have hardened into a resolute and systematic want of principle, which might, perhaps, make him a dangerous and designing man, if urged by circumstances into action. CHAPTER II. “_Dauph._ Sir, I must speak to you. I have been long your despised kinsman. “_Morose._ Oh, what thou wilt, nephew.”--EPICENE. “Her silence is dowry eno’--exceedingly soft spoken; thrifty of her speech, that spends but six words a day.”--_Ibid._ THE coach dropped Mr. Ferrers at the gate of a villa about three miles from town. The lodge-keeper charged himself with the carpet-bag, and Ferrers strolled, with his hands behind him (it was his favourite mode of disposing of them), through the beautiful and elaborate pleasure-grounds.