species of the _beau sexe_. He was too used to women not to know at a
glance that she had nothing bold about her, and yet he was too skeptical
to credit that a girl could possibly exist who was neither a coquette
nor a prude. As soon as the door closed on him his friends began to open
their batteries of scandal.

"How sad it is to see life wasted as my cousin wastes his," said the
Warden, balancing a paper-knife thoughtfully, with a depressed air;
"frittered away on mere trifles, as valuless and empty as soap-bubbles,
but not, alas! so innocent."

"What do you mean?" Nina asked, quickly.

"What do I mean, Miss Gordon?" repeated Eusebius, reproachfully; "what
can I mean but the idle whirl of gaiety, the vitiating pleasures, the
debts and the vices which are to be laid at poor Ernest's door. Ever
since we were boys together, and he was expelled from Rugby for going
to Coventry fair and staying there all night, he has been going rapidly
down the road to ruin."

"He looks very comfortable in his descent," smiled the young lady. "Pray
why, after all, shouldn't horses, operas, and Manillas, be as legitimate
objects to set one's affections upon as Norman arches and Gregorian
chants? He has his dissipations, you have yours. Chacun a son gout!"

The Warden had his reasons for conciliating the young heiress, so he
made a feeble effort to smile. "You know as well as I that you do not
think what you say, Miss Gordon. Were it merely Vaughan's tastes that
were in fault it would not be of such fearful consequence, but
unfortunately it is his principles."

"He is utterly without any," said Miss Selina Ruskinstone, who, ten
years before, had been deeply and hopelessly in love with Ernest, and
never forgave him for not reciprocating the passion.

"He is a skeptic, a gambler, a spendthrift; and a more heartlessless
flirt never lived," averred Miss Augusta, who hated the whole of
Ernest's sex--even the Chapter--_pour cause_.

"Gentlemen can't help seeming flirts sometimes, some women pay such
attention to them," said Nina, with a mischievous laugh. "Poor Mr.
Vaughn! I hope he's not as black as he is painted. His physiognomy tells
a different tale; he is just my ideal of 'Ernest Maltravers.' How kind
his eyes are; have you ever looked into them, Selina?"

Miss Ruskinstone gave an angry sneer, vouchsafing no other response.

"My dear Nina, how foolishly you talk, about looking into a young man's
eyes," frowned her father. "I am s