temptation so strong and so deadly. With you it might not be the
sin of an hour, but the bondage of a life. I know your chivalric
honour--your tender heart; I know how faithful you would be to one who
had sacrificed for you. But that fidelity, Maltravers, to what a life
of wasted talent and energies would it not compel you! Putting aside
for the moment (for that needs no comment) the question of the grand
immorality--what so fatal to a bold and proud temper, as to be at war
with society at the first entrance into life? What so withering to manly
aims and purposes, as the giving into the keeping of a woman, who has
interest in your love, and interest against your career which might part
you at once from her side--the control of your future destinies? I
could say more, but I trust what I have said is superfluous; if so, pray
assure me of it. Depend upon this, Ernest Maltravers, that if you do
not fulfil what nature intended for your fate, you will be a morbid
misanthrope, or an indolent voluptuary--wrenched and listless in
manhood, repining and joyless in old age. But if you do fulfil your
fate, you must enter soon into your apprenticeship. Let me see you
labour and aspire--no matter what in--what to. Work, work--that is all I
ask of you!

"I wish you would see your old country-house; it has a venerable and
picturesque look, and during your minority they have let the ivy cover
three sides of it. Montaigne might have lived there.

"Adieu, dearest Ernest,
"Your anxious and affectionate guardian,
"FREDERICK CLEVELAND.

"P. S.--I am writing a book--it shall last me ten years--it occupies me,
but does not fatigue. Write a book yourself."

* * * * *

Maltravers had just finished this letter when Ferrers entered
impatiently. "Will you ride out?" said he. "I have sent the breakfast
away; I saw that breakfast was a vain hope to-day--indeed, my appetite
is gone."

"Pshaw!" said Maltravers.

"Pshaw! Humph! for my part I like well-bred people."

"I have had a letter from Cleveland."

"And what the deuce has that got to do with the chocolate?"

"Oh, Lumley, you are insufferable; you think of nothing but yourself,
and self with you means nothing that is not animal."

"Why, yes; I believe I have some sense," replied Ferrers, complacently.
"I know the philosophy of life. All unfledged bipeds are animals, I
suppose. If Providence had made me graminivorous, I should have eaten
grass; if ruminating, I should