"I'm sure--you'll--excuse--me, Mr. Titmouse," said she, rising, and speaking quickly and faintly. When she had regained her room, she wept bitterly for upwards of an hour; and Miss Macspleuchan, well aware of the cause of it, knew not how to console one who had so deliberately immolated herself before the hideous little image of Mammon; who, in degrading herself, had also--and Miss Macspleuchan, a true lady, when alone, shed bitter and scalding tears, and her bosom swelled with wounded pride and indignation at the thought--degraded her whole sex. In due time, however, the _Aurora_, a fashionable morning London newspaper, thus announced to the public, as an _auspicious_ event, the one which I have so faithfully, feeling much pain the while, described to the reader:-- "It is rumored that Mr. Titmouse, who so lately recovered the very large estates of Yatton, in Yorkshire, and whose appearance in the fashionable world has created so great a sensation, and who is already connected, by consanguinity, with the ancient and noble family of Dreddlington, is about to form a closer alliance with it, and is now the accepted suitor of the lovely and accomplished Lady Cecilia Philippa Leopoldina Plantagenet, sole daughter and heiress of the Right Hon. the Earl of Dreddlington, and next in succession to the barony of Drelincourt, the most ancient, we believe, in the kingdom." CHAPTER XI. Behold now, thoughtful reader--for in your eyes it is anxiously desired that this history may find favor--the dreadful--the desperate reverse in Mr. Aubrey's circumstances. He has suddenly fallen from a very commanding position in society: from that of a high-born English gentleman, possessed of a fine unencumbered income, and all of luxury and splendor, and of opportunity for gratifying a disposition of noble munificence, that it can secure--and whose qualifications and prospects justified him in aspiring to the highest senatorial distinction:--behold him, I say, with his beloved and helpless family, sunk--lower than into straitened circumstances--beneath even poverty--into the palsying atmosphere of _debt_--and debt, too, inextricable and hopeless. Seeing that no one can be so secure, but that all this, or something of the like kind, may one day or other happen to him, 'tis hoped that it will be found neither uninteresting nor uninstructive to watch carefully and closely the present condition and _conduct_ of the Aubreys.