Polly Neefit for any amount of money; but not the less might it be
agreeable to him to pass a Sunday afternoon in her company.

Ralph Newton at this time occupied very comfortable bachelor's rooms
in a small street close to St. James's Palace. He had now held these
for the last two years, and had contrived to make his friends about
town know that here was his home. He had declined to go into the army
himself when he was quite young,--or rather had agreed not to go into
the army, on condition that he should not be pressed as to any other
profession. He lived, however, very much with military friends, many
of whom found it convenient occasionally to breakfast with him, or
to smoke a pipe in his chambers. He never did any work, and lived
a useless, butterfly life,--only with this difference from other
butterflies, that he was expected to pay for his wings.

In that matter of payment was the great difficulty of Ralph Newton's
life. He had been started at nineteen with an allowance of L250 per
annum. When he was twenty-one he inherited a fortune from his father
of more than double that amount; and as he was the undoubted heir to
a property of L7,000 a year, it may be said of him that he was born
with a golden spoon. But he had got into debt before he was twenty,
and had never got out of it. The quarrel with his uncle was an old
affair, arranged for him by his father before he knew how to quarrel
on his own score, and therefore we need say no more about that at
present. But his uncle would not pay a shilling for him, and would
have quarrelled also with his other nephew, the clergyman, had he
known that the younger brother assisted the elder. But up to the
moment of which we are writing, the iron of debt had not as yet
absolutely entered into the soul of this young man. He had, in
his need, just borrowed L100 from his breeches-maker; and this
perhaps was not the first time that he had gone to a tradesman for
assistance. But hitherto money had been forthcoming, creditors had
been indulgent, and at this moment he possessed four horses which
were eating their heads off at the Moonbeam, at Barnfield.

At five o'clock, with sufficient sharpness, Ralph Newton got out
of a Hansom cab at the door of Alexandrina Cottage. "He's cum in a
'Ansom," said Mrs. Neefit, looking over the blind of the drawing-room
window. "That's three-and-six," said Neefit, with a sigh. "You
didn't think he was going to walk, father?" said Polly. "There's the