A day or two afterwards, Lord De la Zouch, having accomplished his benevolent purposes, returned to the Continent, having pledged Mr. Aubrey to communicate with him frequently, and particularly with reference to the progress of the important proceedings which he had caused to be set on foot. The splendid chance which now existed of retrieving his former position, was not allowed by Mr. Aubrey to interfere with his close attention to his professional studies, to which he might yet have to look for the only source of his future subsistence; and he continued his attendance at Mr. Mansfield's chambers with exemplary punctuality and energy. It was not long after Lord De la Zouch's second departure from England, that the melancholy events occurred which have just been narrated--I mean the serious illness of Lord Dreddlington, and the untimely death of Lady Cecilia. The Aubreys had no other intimation of those occurrences than such as they derived from the public papers--from which it appeared that his Lordship's illness had occasioned the fright which had ended in so sad a catastrophe with Lady Cecilia; and that his Lordship's illness had originated in agitation and distress, occasioned by the failure of extensive mercantile speculations into which he had allowed himself to be betrayed by designing persons. In passing down Park Lane, Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey, and Kate, saw a hatchment suspended from the house of Mr. Titmouse; and, some short time afterwards, they saw that bereaved gentleman himself, in the Park, driving a beautiful dark-blue cab, his tiger and he both in mourning--which became them equally. Black greatly alters most people's appearance; but it effected a peculiar change in Mr. Titmouse; the fact being, however, that, desirous of exhibiting even extra marks of respect for the memory of the dear deceased Lady Cecilia, he had put his sandy mustaches and imperial into mourning, by carefully dressing them with Indian ink, which gave a very touching and pensive character indeed to his features. CHAPTER IX.