plainly a question between home to the strayed
reveller's quarters or off to the lockup. Victor was altogether the
younger of the two. But his vehement accompaniment was a tutorship; Mr.
Sowerby improved; it was admitted by Nesta and mademoiselle that he
gained a show of feeling; he had learnt that feeling was wanted. Passion,
he had not a notion of: otherwise he would not be delaying; the
interview, dramatized by the father of the young bud of womanhood, would
be taking place, and the entry into Lakelands calculable, for Nataly's
comfort, as under the aegis of the Cantor earldom. Gossip flies to a
wider circle round the members of a great titled family, is inaudible; or
no longer the diptherian whisper the commonalty hear of the commonalty:
and so we see the social uses of our aristocracy survive. We do not want
the shield of any family; it is the situation that wants it; Nataly ought
to be awake to the fact. One blow and we have silenced our enemy: Nesta's
wedding-day has relieved her parents.

Victor's thoughts upon the instrument for striking that, blow, led him to
suppose Mr. Sowerby might be meditating on the extent of the young lady's
fortune. He talked randomly of money, in a way to shatter Nataly's
conception of him. He talked of City affairs at table, as it had been his
practice to shun the doing; and hit the resounding note on mines, which
have risen in the market like the crest of a serpent, casting a certain
spell upon the mercantile understanding. 'Fredi's diamonds from her own
mine, or what once was--and she still reserves a share,' were to be shown
to Mr. Sowerby.

Nataly respected the young fellow for not displaying avidity at the
flourish of the bait, however it might be affecting him; and she fancied
that he did laboriously, in his way earnestly, study her girl, to sound
for harmony between them, previous to a wooing. She was a closer reader
of social character than Victor; from refraining to run on the broad
lines which are but faintly illustrative of the individual one in being
common to all--unless we have hit by chance on an example of the
downright in roguery or folly or simple goodness. Mr. Sowerby'g bearing
to Nesta was hardly warmed by the glitter of diamonds. His next visit
showed him livelier in courtliness, brighter, fresher; but that was
always his way at the commencement of every visit, as if his reflections
on the foregone had come to a satisfactory conclusion; and the labours of
the n