“You have set me a cruel task, Arabella, but I do not flinch from it; you shall find your pupil worthy the trouble you have bestowed upon her. I shall write again when anything conclusive is settled. If all goes well, I shall be in a position to fulfil my old promise, and offer you a home on your return to England. Would to God it were likely to be a happier, though a humbler one! But that is past now. Farewell. “Yours, in many senses of the word, “Kate Marsden.” The third epistle was from Horace D’Almayne to a friend and ally in Paris. “We transcribe it _verbatim_:-- “Alphonse, mon cher,--I enclose you a draft for 3000 francs, wherewith I beg you to satisfy Carreau, the tailor, _et tous les autres brigands_, who render Paris an unsafe residence for me. You will naturally ask how I have obtained the money; not at the gaming-table, nor on the highway, like Claude Duval. Railroads and police have freed England from highwaymen. No; I have for the present filled my purse by studying the great game of life; in which, like all other games, you must either pillage, or be pillaged. You and I, men of wit and of action, naturally belong to the former class, and have meritoriously laboured to fulfil our destiny. Since I have been in England this time I have sedulously cultivated the _millionaire_ I introduced to you last season, whose pocket you so obligingly relieved of £500 at piquet. I made a bad bargain there in only claiming one-third of the spoil; I should have demanded half, for without my assistance you could have done nothing with him; but I understand them, these cautious islanders, some of their blood runs in my veins--my mother, as you know, having been an Englishwoman. However, the time spent on my _millionaire_ has turned out a more profitable investment than I at all calculated upon. He is a weak, vacillating character, one of those feeble-minded mortals who always require some intelligence stronger than their own to lean upon. This support he has found in your humble servant; and so convinced has he become of my diplomatic powers, that just at present he can do nothing without my approval and sanction. His great object in life is to marry, and it is to assist him in obtaining a wife that my counsel is required. When I first arrived here, I found he was dangling after a charming little country girl, the daughter of a landed proprietor in these parts. I soon discovered that the said proprietor, for mercenary reasons, desired the match; but with the young lady I could do nothing. I gave her the full benefit of my eyes, which, as you know, are not wont to look in vain; but it was no use--even ‘_les petites moustaches noires_,’ usually so irresistible, were thrown away upon her; nor had friend Crane’s £20,000 per annum (_mon Dieu, Alphonse, quelle somme merveilleuse!_) any more effect upon her. But I soon found a clue to her obduracy--the silly child was enamoured of her brother’s friend, a