se.

"But, under all the circumstances, it will be quite as well that you
should leave the Lodge. You must feel that yourself."

"Oh; quite so. I am delighted to think that I shall be able to leave
without having had any unpleasant words. Perhaps to-morrow will do?"

"Just as you please."

"Then I shall be able to add a few drops to all those buckets of
claret which you threw in my teeth just now. I wonder whether any
gentleman was ever before asked by another gentleman how much wine
he had drank in his house, or how many dinners he had eaten. When
you asked me did you expect me to pay for my dinners and wine?" Sir
Francis refused to make any reply to this question. "And when you
delicately hinted at my poverty, had you found my finances to be
lower than you'd always known them? It is disagreeable to be a
penniless younger brother. I have found it so all my life. And I
admit that I ought to have earned my bread. It would have been much
better for me had I done so. People may declare that I am good for
nothing, and may hold me up as an example to be shunned. But I
flatter myself that nobody has called me a blackguard. I have told
no lies to injure men behind their backs;--much less have I done so
to injure a woman. I have sacrificed no girl to my revenge, simply
because she has thrown me over. In the little transactions I have
had I have always run straight. Now I think that upon the whole I
had better go before dinner, and not add anything to the bucket of
claret."

"Just as you please," said Sir Francis. Then Dick Ross left the room
and went away to make such arrangements for his departure as were
possible to him, and the readers of this story shall see him and hear
him no more.

Sir Francis when he was left alone took out Miss Altifiorla's letter
and read it again. He was a man who could assume grand manners in his
personal intercourse with women, but was peculiarly apt to receive
impression from them. He loved to be flattered, and was prone to
believe anything good of himself that was said to him by one of them.
He therefore took the following letter for more than it was worth.

MY DEAR SIR FRANCIS,--I know that you will have been quite
quick enough to have understood when you received my
former little scrawl what my answer would be. When a woman
attempts to deceive a man in such a matter she knows
beforehand that the attempt will be vain; and I certainly
did not think that I could succe