Mr. Aubrey resolved to live in strict privacy; and they consequently communicated their residence to but one or two of their numerous friends, and to them only in confidence. To have acted otherwise, would have seriously interfered with the arrangements which, long ago contemplated, he had now fixed upon. It would have been perpetually calling their attention to the contrast between former days and scenes, and the present; opening their wounds afresh; and moreover, subjecting them to kind and generous importunities and offers, which, however delicate, would have been exquisitely painful and trying to an honorable pride. But it is time that I should proceed to give a more particular account of the position, the personal feelings, and the purposes and prospects of Mr. Aubrey. From the moment when he received the first intimation of the desperate assault about to be made upon his fortunes, he felt a conviction--whether arising from weakness, or superstition, or any other cause it concerns me not here to say--that the issue would be a disastrous one for him; and, the first alarm and confusion over, he addressed himself with serious calmness, with deep anxiety, to the determination of his future course of life. A man of his refined taste and feeling would inevitably appreciate exquisitely--with, indeed, a most agonizing intensity--the loss of all those superior enjoyments--the deliciæ of life--to which he had been from his birth accustomed. _Semper enim delicatè ac molliter vixit._ I speak not here of the mere exterior "appliances and means" of wealth and station, but of the fastidious and sensitive condition of _feeling_ and temper, which such a state of things is calculated to engender in a person of his description. He could part with the one; but how could he divest himself of the other? Even had he been alone in the world, and not surrounded with objects of the tenderest regard, whose safety or ruin was involved in his own, one of the results of his opponent's success--namely, his claim to the mesne profits--was calculated to fetter all his movements, to hang like a millstone round his neck; and that effect, indeed, it had. Still he played the man--resolved to act promptly, and with the best consideration he could give to his critical position. He had not yet reached the prime of life; had a fair share of health; had been blessed with the inestimable advantages of a thorough--a first-rate education--and, above all, had followed out his early advantages by laborious and systematic study. He had not only made accurate, extensive, and valuable acquisitions of knowledge, but learned how to use them--to turn them to practical account. What would, he thought, have become of him, had he--or those before him--neglected his education? Then he had acquired a considerable familiarity with business habits, in the House of Commons; and had friends and connections who might be of essential service to him, if he could but first succeed in