pects in life, as did also Lady Mountjoy, as to make it
appear that if Florence could put up with young Anderson she would do
very well with herself.

"He's sure to be a baronet some of these days, you know," said Sir
Magnus.

"I don't think that would go very far with Florence," said her mother.

"But it ought. Look about in the world and you'll see that it does go a
long way. He'd be the fifth baronet."

"But his elder brother is alive."

"The queerest fellow you ever saw in your born days, and his life is not
worth a year's purchase. He's got some infernal disease,--nostalgia, or
what 'd'ye call it?--which never leaves him a moment's peace, and then
he drinks nothing but milk. Sure to go off;--cock sure."

"I shouldn't like Florence to count upon that."

"And then Hugh Anderson, the fellow here, is very well off as it is. He
has four hundred pounds here, and another five hundred pounds of his
own. Florence has, or will have, four hundred pounds of her own. I
should call them deuced rich. I should, indeed, as beginners. She could
have her pair of ponies here, and what more would she want?"

These arguments did go very far with Mrs. Mountjoy, the farther because
in her estimation Sir Magnus was a great man. He was the greatest
Englishman, at any rate, in Brussels, and where should she go for advice
but to an Englishman? And she did not know that Sir Magnus had succeeded
in borrowing a considerable sum of money from his second secretary of
legation.

"Leave her to me for a little;--just leave her to me," said Lady
Mountjoy.

"I would not say anything hard to her," said the mother, pleading for
her naughty child.

"Not too hard, but she must be made to understand. You see there have
been misfortunes. As to Mountjoy Scarborough, he's past hoping for."

"You think so?"

"Altogether. When a man has disappeared there's an end of him. There was
Lord Baltiboy's younger son disappeared, and he turned out to be a
Zouave corporal in a French regiment. They did get him out, of course,
but then he went preaching in America. You may take it for granted, that
when a man has absolutely vanished from the clubs, he'll never be any
good again as a marrying man."

"But there's his brother, who, they say, is to have the property."

"A very cold-blooded sort of young man, who doesn't care a straw for his
own family." He had received very sternly the overtures for a loan from
Sir Magnus. "And he, as I understand, has never