There lived in the West of London, near to one of our most fashionable parks, a gentleman of the name of Holdfast. He was a widower, having lost his wife a year before the commencement of our narrative. He had but one child, a son named Frederick, who was at Oxford, with a liberal allowance. The son is described as a young gentleman with engaging manners, and of a lively disposition; it was whispered also, that he was given to dissipation, and had made his father's purse suffer to a woeful extent. There is nothing extraordinary in this. What are rich fathers good for in this world if they send their sons to college and keep their pockets buttoned? Money lenders _must_ live, and they take especial good care to thrive and grow fat. Young gentlemen _must_ see life, and they take especial good care to drink deep of the intoxicating cup, and to sow a plentiful crop of wild oats. It is an old story, and our readers will have no difficulty in supplying certain accessories in the shape of pretty women, late suppers, horse racing, gambling, kite flying, post obits, and the thousand and one other commonplace but important elements in the younger days of manhood in the life of an only son. The death of Mr. Holdfast's wife was a severe blow to him; his son was left to him, truly; but what comfort to the bereaved father could a son have been who was endowed with vicious tastes, and whose career of dissipation was capped by a depraved association with degraded women--especially with one with whom he formed a close connection, which would have broken his father's heart, had that father himself not been of a self-sustaining, proud, and high-minded disposition. The news of his son's disgraceful connection, although it did not break the father's heart, was the means of effecting a breach between the father and son which was destined never to be healed. Before, however, this severance took place, an important change occurred in Mr. Holdfast's household. Mr. Holdfast married again, a very lovely woman, whose name, before she became Mrs. Holdfast, was Lydia Wilson.