Poets talk of youth as the impressionable age; they rave about its ardor, its impetuous, uncalculating generosity, and so forth; but for an act of downright self-forgetting devotion, for that impulsive spirit that takes no counsel from calm reason, give us an elderly gentleman,-- anything from sixty-four to fourscore. These are the really ardent and tender lovers,--easy victims, too, of all the wiles that beset them. Had any grave notary, or deep plotting man upon 'Change suggested to Sir William the project of employing his ward's fortune with any view to his own profit, the chances are that the hint would have been rejected as an outrage, and the suggester insulted; but the plan came from rosy lips, whispered by the softest of voices; and even the arithmetic was jotted down by fingers so taper and so white that he lost sight of the multiples in his admiration of the calculator. His first experiences, besides, were all great successes. Kansas scrip went up to a fabulous premium. When he sold out his Salt Lake Fives, he realized cent per cent. These led him on. That “ardor nummi” which was not new in the days of the Latin poet, is as rife in _our_ time as it was centuries ago. Let us also bear in mind that there is something very fascinating to a man of a naturally active temperament to be recalled, after years of inglorious leisure, to subjects of deep and stirring interest; he likes the self-flattery of being equal to such themes, that his judgment should be as sound, his memory as clear, and his apprehension as ready as it used to be. Proud man is the old fox-hunter that can charge his “quickset” at fourscore; but infinitely prouder the old country gentleman who, at the same age, fancies himself deep in all the mysteries of finance, and skilled in the crafty lore of the share- market. And, last of all, he was vexed and irritated by Charley's desertion of him, and taunted by the tone in which the young man alluded to the widow and her influence in the family. To be taught caution, or to receive lessons in worldly craft from one very much our junior, is always a trial of temper; and so did everything conspire to make him an easy victim to her machinations.