to grieve for him, nothing certainly which would have
caused thee to repudiate him, had he been thy brother. And gentlest,
sweetest reader, had he come to thee as thy lover, with sufficient
protest of love, and with all his history written in his hand, would
that have caused thee to reject his suit? Had he been thy neighbour,
thou well-to-do reader, with a house in the country, would he not
have been welcome to thy table? Wouldst thou have avoided him at
his club, thou reader from the West-end? Has he not settled himself
respectably, thou grey-haired, novel-reading paterfamilias, thou
materfamilias, with daughters of thine own to be married? In life
would he have been held to have disgraced himself,--except in the
very moment in which he seemed to be in danger? Nevertheless, the
faults of a Ralph Newton, and not the vices of a Varney or a Barry
Lyndon are the evils against which men should in these days be taught
to guard themselves;--which women also should be made to hate. Such
is the writer's apology for his very indifferent hero, Ralph the
Heir.

CHAPTER LVII.

CLARISSA'S FATE.

In the following October, while Newton of Newton and his bride
were making themselves happy amidst the glories of Florence, she
with her finery from Paris, and he with a newly-acquired taste for
Michael Angelo and the fine arts generally, Gregory the parson again
went up to London. He had, of course, "assisted" at his brother's
marriage,--in which the heavy burden of the ceremony was imposed
on the shoulders of a venerable dean, who was related to Lady
Eardham,--and had since that time been all alone at his parsonage.
Occasionally he had heard of the Underwoods from Ralph Newton of
Beamingham, whose wedding had been postponed till Beamingham Hall had
been made fit for its mistress; and from what he had heard Gregory
was induced,--hardly to hope,--but to dream it to be possible
that even yet he might prevail in love. An idea had grown upon
him, springing from various sources, that Clarissa had not been
indifferent to his brother, and that this feeling on her part had
marred, and must continue to mar, his own happiness. He never
believed that there had been fault on his brother's part; but still,
if Clarissa had been so wounded,--he could hardly hope,--and perhaps
should not even wish,--that she would consent to share with him his
parsonage in the close neighbourhood of his brother's house. During
all that September he told himse