dingy furniture and ten pounds for a mourning ring, had been his sole legacy from Piers Rankley. But no income, however fair, would have tempted Mr. Guyon to undertake any honest work, or, as he phrased it, any "d--d low ungentlemanlike slavery;" and the consequence was that, what with an accumulation of gambling-table (he was a member of the Nob and Heels Club, where they play whist for twenty-four hours at a sitting, pound points and a tenner on the rub) and turf debts, he was just at the time of his introduction into this story in a really desperate condition. It had been an unlucky season with him. His racing information had been bad throughout. Commencing ill last Chester, he had been hard hit at Epsom, had dropped more money at Ascot, and could only pull off a stake at the coming Doncaster by a most unlikely fluke. He had had frightful ill-luck at cards. Acknowledged to be one of the best whist-players of the day, he had scarcely held a trump since the winter, and had been beaten by the merest tyros. That very acceptance, which his new acquaintance Streightley held, had been given to Davidson for a card debt; and Guyon had forgotten all about it, having, contrary to his usual custom, omitted to enter it in his book. However, that was staved off for the present; and the few words which he had had with his daughter on the subject had opened a new well-spring of life in Mr. Guyon's breast. If what Kate surmised, or rather half hinted at, were true--and, with all her pride and wilfulness, she had wonderful common-sense and shrewdness--it might, with judicious management, be turned to wondrous advantage. It was but in embryo yet, to be sure; but, with Kate's beauty and his own tact, it could be brought off at any moment, and the value of it would be--well, he would see at once what the value of it would be by representing it as a certainty to his chief creditor and principal discount-agent, Mr. Daniel Thacker.