ies, his bouquets for baronnes, and his
bracelets for ballerinas, Ernest gained his reputation as a _Lion_,
and--ruined himself, too, poor old fellow!

His place down in Surrey had mortgages thick on every inch of its lands,
and the money that kept him going was borrowed from those modern Satans,
money lenders, at the usually ruinous interest. "But still," Ernest was
wont to say, with great philosophy, "I've had ten years' swing of
pleasure. Does every man get as much as that? And should I have been any
happier if I'd been a good boy, and a country squire, sat on the bench,
amused my mind with turnips, and married some bishop's daughter, who'd
have marched me to church, forbidden cigars, and buried me in family
boots?"

Certainly that would _not_ have been his line, and so, in natural horror
at it, he dashed into a diametrically opposite one, and after the favor
he had shown him from every handsome woman that drove through Longchamp,
wore diamonds at the Tuileries, and supped with dominos noirs at bals
d'Opera, and the favor he showed to cards, the _courses_, and the
_coulisses_, few bishops would have imperilled their daughters' souls by
setting them to hunt down this wicked _Lion_, especially as the poor
_Lion_ now wasn't worth the trapping. If he had been, there would have
been hue and cry enough after him I don't doubt; but the Gordon Cummings
of the beau sexe rarely hunt unless it's worth their while, and they can
bring home splendid spoils to make their bosom friends mad with envy;
and Ernest, despite his handsome face, his fashionable reputation, and
the aroma of conquest that hung about him (they used to say he never
wooed ever so negligently but he won), was assuredly neither an
"eligible speculation" nor a "marrying man," and was an object rather
of terror to English mammas steering budding young ladies through the
dangerous vortex of French society with a fierce chevaux de frise of
British prejudices and a keen British eye to business. If Ernest was of
no other use, however, he was invaluable to his uncles, aunts, and male
cousins, as a sort of scapegoat and _epouvantail_, to be held up on high
to show the unwary what they would come to if they followed his steps.
It was so pleasant to them to exult over his backslidings, and, cutting
him mercilessly up into little bits, hold condemnatory sermons over
every one of the pieces. "Dans l'adversite de nos meilleurs amis, nous
trouvons toujours quelque chose qui n