Mr. Gammon was a man of very powerful mind, possessing energies of the highest order, and for the development and display of which he felt, and fretted when he felt, his present position in society afforded him no scope whatever, till at least he had entered upon that series of bold but well-conceived plans and purposes with which he has been represented as occupied, since the time when he first became the secret master of the fortunes of Titmouse. His ambition was boundless, and he felt within himself a capacity for the management of political affairs of no ordinary magnitude, could he but force himself into the regions where his energies and qualifications could be discovered and appreciated. Indeed, I will undertake to say, that, had Gammon only been a GOOD man, he would, in all probability, have become a great one. But, to proceed with the matters which were then occupying his busy brain. There was yet one upon which all his thoughts settled with a sort of agitating interest--his connection with the Aubreys; and whenever that name occurred to his thoughts, one beauteous image rose before him like that of an angel--I mean Miss Aubrey. She was the first object that had ever excited in him any, the faintest, semblance of the passion of _love_--that love, I mean, which is in a manner purified and sublimated from all grossness or sensuality by a due appreciation of intellectual and moral excellence. When he dwelt upon the character of Miss Aubrey, and for a moment realized the possibility of a union with her, he felt, as it were, elevated above himself. Then her person was very beautiful; and there was a certain bewitching _something_ about her manners, which Gammon could only _feel_, not describe; in short, his passion for her had risen to a most extraordinary pitch of intensity, and became a sort of infatuation. In spite of all that had happened at Yatton, he had contrived to continue, and was at that moment, on terms of considerable intimacy with the Aubreys; and had, moreover, been all the while so watchful over himself as to have given none of them any reason to suspect the state of his feelings towards Miss Aubrey; and, on the other hand, nothing had ever transpired to give him the slightest inkling of the state of matters between Miss Aubrey and Delamere--with the exception of one solitary circumstance which had at the moment excited his suspicions--Mr. Delamere's contesting the borough of Yatton. Though he had watched for it, however, nothing had afterwards occurred calculated to confirm his apprehensions. He had taken infinite pains to keep a good name in Vivian Street, with great art representing, from time to time, his disgust for the conduct and character of Titmouse, and the reluctance with which he discharged his professional duty towards that gentleman. He made a point of alluding to the "gross and malignant insult" which had been offered at the hustings to the venerable Vicar of