One of the greatest anxieties which Lady Monkton felt at this time--and they were anxieties which amounted to grief--proceeded from the circumstances of her sister Margaret. Sir John Fleetwood had turned out all that Mr. Scriven had anticipated--reckless, extravagant, licentious. His whole thought and occupation seemed to be, how he might soon run through his own property and that part of his wife's fortune over which he had control. He was very successful in his endeavours. What bad associates, male and female, did not contrive to dissipate soon enough, cards, dice, and horses succeeded in losing; and at length he endeavoured to get rid of his wife's settlement. She would willingly have given it up to please him; for though he had been a negligent and offending husband, yet so long as money lasted he had always been gay and good-humoured with her, treating her more as an innocent and unsuspecting child than as a companion. But Mr. Scriven had taken care of his sister's income. It could not be touched even with her own consent. No creditor had power over it; her own receipt was necessary for every penny of the income, and being settled upon her children, though she had none, it was inviolable. Sir John had not clearly perceived these stringent conditions when he signed the deed; and some sharp discussions took place between him and his brother-in-law. He became gloomy, morose, fretful; and still he would appear at Ascot or at the gambling-table, though he could no longer maintain the appearance which he had once displayed. It was at the former of these places that a dispute took place between himself and another gentleman _of the turf_. It matters not much to this work which was wrong or which was right, and indeed I do not know. Hard epithets were exchanged, and Sir John employed a horsewhip, not for its most legitimate purpose. Two mornings after he was brought home in a dying state, with a pistol-shot through his lungs, and never uttered a word during the half-hour he continued to exist. It must have been an awful half-hour, for it was clear that his senses and his memory were all still perfect; and what a picture memory must have shown him! Poor Lady Fleetwood was in despair. Her love had never failed, nor even diminished. She had never admitted his faults even to herself; or, at all events, had found excuses for them in her kind and affectionate heart. Now that he was gone she was still less likely to discover them; for bitter sorrow drew a veil between her eyes and all that might have shocked her in the conduct of the dead. It is true, there was one thing could not be concealed from her: that he had wasted every penny of his own property, and of hers, too, as far as it was in his power to do so. But then she fancied that he had been only unfortunate, and doubted not that, had he lived, all would have been set right. Her brother, Mr. Scriven, tried hard in his cold, dry way