afterwards. Vaudemont continued, however, seated next to
Camilla, and the embarrassment he had at first felt disappeared. He
possessed, when he pleased, that kind of eloquence which belongs to
men who have seen much and felt deeply, and whose talk has not been
frittered down to the commonplace jargon of the world. His very
phraseology was distinct and peculiar, and he had that rarest of all
charms in polished life, originality both of thought and of manner.
Camilla blushed, when she found at dinner that he placed himself by her
side. That evening De Vaudemont excused himself from playing, but the
table was easily made without him, and still he continued to converse
with the daughter of the man whom he held as his worst foe. By degrees,
he turned the conversation into a channel that might lead him to the
knowledge he sought.

"It was my fate," said he, "once to become acquainted with an intimate
friend of the late Mr. Beaufort. Will you pardon me if I venture to
fulfil a promise I made to him, and ask you to inform me what has become
of a--a--that is, of Sidney Morton?"

"Sidney Morton! I don't even remember the name. Oh, yes! I have heard
it," added Camilla, innocently, and with a candour that showed how
little she knew of the secrets of the family; "he was one of two poor
boys in whom my brother felt a deep interest--some relations to my
uncle. Yes--yes! I remember now. I never knew Sidney, but I once did see
his brother."

"Indeed! and you remember--"

"Yes! I was very young then. I scarcely recollect what passed, it was
all so confused and strange; but, I know that I made papa very angry,
and I was told never to mention the name of Morton again. I believe they
behaved very ill to papa."

"And you never learned--never!--the fate of either--of Sidney?"

"Never!"

"But your father must know?"

"I think not; but tell me,"--said Camilla, with girlish and unaffected
innocence, "I have always felt anxious to know,--what and who were those
poor boys?"

What and who were they? So deep, then, was the stain upon their name,
that the modest mother and the decorous father had never even said to
that young girl, "They are your cousins--the children of the man in
whose gold we revel!"

Philip bit his lip, and the spell of Camilla's presence seemed vanished.
He muttered some inaudible answer, turned away to the card-table, and
Liancourt took the chair he had left vacant.

"And how does Miss Beaufort like my friend Va