to a judge of young men. Indeed, had she chosen from a
crowd, the choice would have been one of his age. She was too set for an
older man; but a youth aspiring to be older than he was; whose faults she
saw and forgave; whose merits supplied two or three of her own
deficiencies; whom her station might help to elevate; to whom she might
come as a benefactress; feeling so while she accomplished her own
desire;--such a youth was everything to her, as she awoke to discover
after having played with him a season. If she lost him, what became of
her? Even if she had rejoiced in a mother to plot and play,--to bait and
snare for her, her time was slipping, and the choosers among her class
were wary. Her spirit, besides, was high and elective. It was gradually
stooping to nature, but would never have bowed to a fool, or, save under
protest, to one who gave all. On Wilfrid she had fixed her mind: so,
therefore, she bore the remembrance of the recent scene without much
fretting at her burdens;--the more, that Wilfrid had in no way shamed
her; and the more, that the heat of Emilia's love played round him and
illumined him. This borrowing of the passion of another is not uncommon.

At daybreak Mrs. Chump was abroad. She had sat up for Wilfrid almost
through the night. "Oh! the arr'stocracy!" she breathed exclamations, as
she swept along the esplanade. "I'll be killed and murdered if I tell a
word." Meeting Captain Gambier, she fell into a great agitation, and
explained it as an anxiety she entertained for Wilfrid; when, becoming
entangled in the mesh of questions, she told all she knew, and nearly as
much as she suspected: which fatal step to retrieve, she entreated his
secresy. Adela was now seen fluttering hastily up the walk, fresh as a
creature of the sea-wave. Before Mrs. Chump could summon her old wrath of
yesterday, she was kissed, and to the arch interrogation as to what she
had done with this young lady's brother, replied by telling the tale of
the night again. Mrs. Chump was ostentatiously caressed into a more
comfortable opinion of the world's morality, for the nonce. Invited by
them to breakfast at the hotel, she hurried back to her villa for a
flounced dress and a lace cap of some pretensions, while they paced the
shore.

"See what may be said!" Adela's countenance changed as she muttered it.
"Thought, would be enough," she added, shuddering.

"Yes; if one is off guard--careless," the captain assented, flowingly.

"Ca