was to be done. Money,
which spent in other directions seemed to be nearly useless to him,
might be used beneficially in this way. But how was he to set about
it? Polly Neefit was as pretty a girl as you shall wish to see,
and he knew that she was pretty. But, if he didn't take care, the
good-looking young gasfitter, next door to him down at Hendon, would
have his Polly before he knew where he was. Or, worse still, as
he thought, there was that mad son of his old friend Moggs, the
bootmaker, Ontario Moggs as he had been christened by a Canadian
godfather, with whom Polly had condescended already to hold something
of a flirtation. He could not advertise for a genteel lover. What
could he do?

Then Ralph Newton made his way down to the Hendon villa,--asking for
money. What should have induced Mr. Newton to come to him for money
he could not guess;--but he did know that, of all the young men who
came into his back shop to be measured, there was no one whose looks
and manners and cheery voice had created so strong a feeling of
pleasantness as had those of Mr. Ralph Newton. Mr. Neefit could not
analyse it, but there was a kind of sunshine about the young man
which would have made him very unwilling to press hard for payment,
or to stop the supply of breeches. He had taken a liking to Ralph,
and found himself thinking about the young man in his journeys
between Hendon and Conduit Street. Was not this the sort of gentleman
that would suit his daughter? Neefit wanted no one to tell him that
Ralph Newton was a gentleman,--what he meant by a gentleman,--and
that Wallop the stockbroker was not. Wallop the stockbroker spoke
of himself as though he was a very fine fellow indeed; but to the
thinking of Mr. Neefit, Ontario Moggs was more like a gentleman than
Mr. Wallop. He had feared much as to his daughter, both in reference
to the handsome gasfitter and to Ontario Moggs, but since that second
tea-drinking he had hoped that his daughter's eyes were opened.

He had made inquiry about Ralph Newton, and had found that the young
man was undoubtedly heir to a handsome estate in Hampshire,--a place
called Newton Priory, with a parish of Newton Peele, and lodges, and
a gamekeeper, and a park. He knew from of old that Ralph's uncle
would have nothing to do with his nephew's debts; but he learned now
as a certainty that the uncle could not disinherit his nephew. And
the debts did not seem to be very high;--and Ralph had come into some
pr