a dozen contemptuously from him, "are
all from your constituents. The 'independent borough' contains seventy
electors; and if you owned the patronage of the two services, with a
fair share of the public offices and India, you could n't content them.
I 'd tell them fairly, 'I have bought you already; the article is paid
for and sent home. Let us hear no more about it!' This is more cheering.
Shoenhals, of Riga, stands firm, and the Rotterdam house will weather
the gale. That's good news, Onslow!" said he, grasping the old man's
hand. "This is from Calcutta. Prospects are brightening a little in that
quarter, too. Come, come,--there's some blue in the sky. Who knows what
good weather 's in store for us?"

Onslow's lip trembled, and he passed his hand over his eyes without
speaking.

"This is from Como," said Grounsell, half angrily, tossing away a highly
perfumed little three-cornered note.

"Give it to me,----let me see it," said Onslow, eagerly; while with
trembling fingers he adjusted his spectacles to read. Grounsell handed
him the epistle, and walked to the window.

"She's quite well," read Sir Stafford, aloud; "they had delightful
weather on the road, and found Como in full beauty on their arrival."
Grounsell grumbled some angry mutterings between his teeth, and shrugged
up his shoulders disdainfully. "She inquires most kindly after me, and
wishes me to join them there, for Kate Dalton's betrothal."

"Yet she never took the trouble to visit you when living under the same
roof!" cried Grounsell, indignantly.

The old man laid down the letter, and seemed to ponder for some moments.

"What's the amount?--how much is the sum?" asked Grounsell, bluntly.

"The amount!--the sum!----of what?" inquired Sir Stafford.

"I ask, what demand is she making, that it is prefaced thus?"

"By Heaven! if you were not a friend of more than fifty years' standing,
you should never address me as such again," cried Onslow, passionately.
"Has ill-nature so absorbed your faculties that you have not a good
thought or good feeling left you?"

"My stock of them decreases every day,----ay, every hour, Onslow," said
he, with a deeper emotion than he had yet displayed. "It is, indeed,
a sorry compromise, that if age is to make us wiser, it should make us
less amiable, also!"

"You are not angry with me?--not offended, Grounsell?" said Onslow,
grasping his hand in both his own.

"Not a bit of it But, as to temperament, _I_ can no more