"And did he tell you nothing more when he called upon you afterwards with his child?" "Nothing. To tell you the truth, sir," said the Baronet, who, warmed by a second bottle, now glowed with a generous candour, "I was in a mighty ill mood for receiving an out-at-elbows relation upon the particular afternoon this gentleman came here; for I had just brought home the finest hunter in my stud dead lame from a stumble into a blind ditch. I could have turned upon my own mother, sir; and then comes this third cousin of mine with a puling brat, and tells me he has not a penny in the world, and asks me to give him hospitality till his fortunes mend--whereas there was no more hope of his fortunes mending than of my poor Brown Bess getting a new leg--and I daresay I may have answered him somewhat uncivilly; and so we parted, as I told you, in a rage. But I am sorry for it, now you tell me he died of hunger. 'Tis hard for a gentleman to sink so low." "Will you allow me to take a copy of that letter, Sir John?" "A dozen, sir, if you please. There are pens on that standish, and paper somewhere on the table. I'll go and smoke my pipe in the saddle-room while you act scribe, and I daresay when you've finished it will be supper-time, and we shall both be in appetite for a chine and a venison pasty. We keep country hours." CHAPTER VI. "THE LADIES THERE MUST NEEDS BE ROOKS." Mr. Durnford went back to London and worked hard in the senate and in his study, eschewing all those scenes of pleasure and dissipation which had once been his natural atmosphere. Lord Lavendale remonstrated with him for having turned hermit and forsaken his friend. "Thou wert once as my twin brother, Herrick," he said, "but thou art now as some over-wise cousin, too sober and industrious to be on good terms with folly." "I am in love, Jack, and I have a serious purpose in this life which gives strength to resolution and sweetens labour." "Joseph Addison himself, the Christian philosopher, never pronounced sounder wisdom." "Alas, Lavendale, I wish with all my heart you could find one to love whose mere _eidolon_ should be strong enough to guard and guide you." "To keep my feet from Chocolate Houses and my tongue from libertine discourse, eh, Herrick? Nay, old friend, there is no such woman. The one I love is of the world, worldly. Were she free to wed me, I would do all that man dare do to win her: but she is not free, and I can but amuse myself in the paths of foolishness." "You are ruining your health, wasting your fortune, and I doubt if even at this cost you have bought happiness."