"Well, I don't want to be ill-natured; but sometimes I thought that he wanted to borrow money, and didn't exactly know how to begin." "To borrow money!" He had once borrowed money from Miss Baker. "Well, I don't know; I only say I thought so. He never did." Miss Baker sighed again, and then there was a slight pause in the conversation. "But, Miss Todd--" "Well, my dear!" "Do you think that--" "Think what? Speak out, my dear; you may before me. If you've got any secret, I'll keep it." "Oh! I've got no secret; only this. Do you think that Sir Lionel is--is poor--that he should want to borrow money?" "Well; poor! I hardly know what you call poor. But we all know that he is a distressed man. I suppose he has a good income, and a little ready money would, perhaps, set him up; but there's no doubt about his being over head and ears in debt, I suppose." This seemed to throw a new and unexpected light on Miss Baker's mind. "I thought he was always so very respectable," said she. "Hum-m-m!" said Miss Todd, who knew the world. "Eh?" said Miss Baker, who did not. "It depends on what one means by respectable," said Miss Todd. "I really thought he was so very--" "Hum-m-m-m," repeated Miss Todd, shaking her head. And then there was a little conversation carried on between these ladies so entirely _sotto voce_ that the reporter of this scene was unable to hear a word of it. But this he could see, that Miss Todd bore by far the greater part in it. At the end of it, Miss Baker gave another, and a longer, and a deeper sigh. "But you know, my dear," said Miss Todd, in her most consolatory voice, and these words were distinctly audible, "nothing does a man of that sort so much good as marrying." "Does it?" asked Miss Baker. "Certainly; if his wife knows how to manage him." And then Miss Todd departed, leaving Miss Baker with much work for her thoughts. Her female friend Miss Baker had quite forgiven; but she felt that she could never quite forgive him. "To have deceived me so!" she said to herself, recurring to her old idea of his great respectability. But, nevertheless, it was probably his other sin that rankled deepest in her mind. Of Miss Baker it may be said that she had hardly touched the pitch; at any rate, that it had not defiled her. Sir Lionel was somewhat ill at ease as he walked from the Paragon to his livery stables. He had certainly looked upon success with Miss Todd as by no means sure; but, nevertheless, he was disappointed. Let any of us, in any attempt that we may make, convince ourselves with ever so much firmness that we shall fail, yet we are hardly the less down-hearted when the failure comes. We assure ourselves that we are not sanguine, but we assure ourselves falsely. It is man's nature to be sanguine; his nature, and perhaps his greatest privilege.