wrote a letter to his brother Laurie; and this is what the young Machiavel said;-- ‘MY DEAR LAURIE,-- ‘You will be surprised I don’t doubt when you see what I am writing to you about. Perhaps you will think it is not the part of the younger to advise the elder; but if we don’t hang together, and do the best we can for each other, what are we, under our present circumstances, to do? I am not quite as old as you are, but perhaps I have been thrown more into the world. You have always taken to artists, and those kind of people, you know, who are out of the tide, and have queer notions; beside being,--no offence intended,--of a diffeent sphere from us. You think, on the other hand, that we are an empty-headed set, and perhaps you are not far wrong; but a fellow picks up a great many wrinkles even among men that are stupid enough to look at,--don’t you see?--when they’ve got some knowledge of the world. ‘The fact is I am beating about the bush a little, because I don’t very well know how to begin what I’ve got to say. It is just this. You must have noticed the other day when you were at Richmont how favourable everybody was to you and to me. Of course, one does not care for the opinion of an old beggar like Rich. But his wife isn’t at all so bad, and the girl, on the whole, is very nice. I assure you frankly I do think so. She’s a clever little thing, and decidedly pretty and amusing too, and fond of pictures, and that sort of thing, so that there would be a sympathy between you. To say it out plump, my opinion is that she is the very sort of girl you ought to marry. It is not everybody that would suit you. You want some one that has money, and yet doesn’t stand upon her money; and that would not be conventional or stuck-up, but take your friends along with yourself, and make up her mind to it. Now Nelly Rich has no right to be stuck-up; and yet she’s nice, and looks nice, and we Rentons are well enough known to marry anybody we please. As for the father, I don’t think you need mind about him. He is very liberal and hospitable, and ready to throw his money about in buckets-full, and that always tells. People may snigger at him, but they’ll go to his house all the same. And you may marry a girl, you know, without marrying her father too. The mother is not at all so bad. She’s motherly, and that sort of thing. And Nelly has fifty thousand pounds. I can’t tell you how much I have been thinking of it since that day. The fellows here have all advised me to go in for it myself, but I’m rather too young to marry; and besides I think it would suit you far better than me. I have my profession, and I can do very well for a few years on my allowance, especially in India, where there is double pay. But you,--forgive