There are not many women of Mrs. Mortomley's stamp to be found in the times we now live in--all the better for the world it may be, since an universe of failure is a thing scarcely to be contemplated with equanimity; but in the old days ladies whose names shall for ever live in story, were not ashamed to cling to a fallen cause, and were capable of feeling a respect and devotion for a fugitive prince they never felt for a king on his throne. But fashions change, and she who adopts an obsolete fashion makes a mistake. "She is as great a simpleton as he," thought Rupert, turning angrily away, for in truth his temper had that day been tried almost beyond endurance. No one living understood better than Rupert Halling, that first to his father and then to him, Mortomley owed the present complication of his affairs. There were plenty of people to enlighten him on both points. City folks are no more backward than the rest of the world about uttering disagreeable truths; and Mr. Rupert Halling had only been assisting his uncle for a short period before references to the way in which his father had regarded Mortomley's chattels as his own, inquiries as to whether Homewood was not a nice sort of place to be free of, facetious remarks concerning the advantage it must prove to a young man to have a relation's house in which to hang up his hat for life, with more covert allusions to Mortomley as a good milch cow, and a confiding, easy-going, soft sort of clever simpleton,--showed the young man exactly how the business world, which he cordially detested, regarded the owner of Homewood and his hangers on. But this and much more Rupert could have borne with equanimity, had he not felt Mortomley's affairs were becoming hopelessly entangled. He had done his best, his poor incompetent best to avert the calamity. He had offered to help his uncle, feeling certain his vigorous youth, his perfect health, his undaunted assurance, could work much more wondrous results on the Cockney mind than Mortomley, with his modest diffidence, his shy, quiet manners, his reserve and his utter absence of self-assertion had ever been able to effect. And at first results justified his confidence. City people are too apt to judge by appearances and to accept a man's estimate of himself as correct, and there were certainly a sufficient number of persons who for a considerable period really did think Rupert a more desirable representative of Mortomley's business than Mortomley himself.