a thorough linguist, sir."

"I dare say. I remember a waiter at an hotel in Holborn who could
speak seven languages. It's an accomplishment very necessary for a
Courier or a Queen's Messenger."

"You don't mean to say, sir, that you disregard foreign languages?"

"I have said nothing of the kind. But in my estimation they don't
stand in the place of principles, or a profession, or birth, or
country. I fancy there has been some conversation between you about
your sister."

"Certainly there has."

"A young man should be very chary how he speaks to another man, to a
stranger, about his sister. A sister's name should be too sacred for
club talk."

"Club talk! Good heavens, sir; you don't think that I have spoken of
Emily in that way? There isn't a man in London has a higher respect
for his sister than I have for mine. This man, by no means in a light
way but with all seriousness, has told me that he was attached to
Emily; and I, believing him to be a gentleman and well to do in the
world, have referred him to you. Can that have been wrong?"

"I don't know how he's 'to do', as you call it. I haven't asked, and
I don't mean to ask. But I doubt his being a gentleman. He is not an
English gentleman. What was his father?"

"I haven't the least idea."

"Or his mother?"

"He has never mentioned her to me."

"Nor his family; nor anything of their antecedents? He is a man
fallen out of the moon. All that is nothing to us as passing
acquaintances. Between men such ignorance should I think bar absolute
intimacy;--but that may be a matter of taste. But it should be held
to be utterly antagonistic to any such alliance as that of marriage.
He seems to be a friend of yours. You had better make him understand
that it is quite out of the question. I have told him so, and you had
better repeat it." So saying, Mr. Wharton went upstairs to dress, and
Everett, having received his father's instructions, went away to the
club.

When Mr. Wharton reached the drawing-room, he found Mrs. Roby alone,
and he at once resolved to discuss the matter with her before he
spoke to his daughter. "Harriet," he said abruptly, "do you know
anything of one Mr. Lopez?"

"Mr. Lopez! Oh yes, I know him."

"Do you mean that he is an intimate friend?"

"As friends go in London, he is. He comes to our house, and I think
that he hunts with Dick." Dick was Mr. Roby.

"That's a recommendation."

"Well, Mr. Wharton, I hardly know what you mean by tha