at remains but marriage?"

"It is true," said Clifford, with a half sigh.

"You may well sigh, my good fellow. Marriage is a lackadaisical
proceeding at best; but there is no resource. And now, when you have got
a liking to a young lady who is as rich as a she-Craesus, and so gilded
the pill as bright as a lord mayor's coach, what the devil have you to
do with scruples?"

Clifford made no answer, and there was a long pause; perhaps he would
not have spoken so frankly as he had done, if the wine had not opened
his heart.

"How proud," renewed Tomlinson, "the good old matron at Thames Court
would be if you married a lady! You have not seen her lately?"

"Not for years," answered our hero. "Poor old soul! I believe that
she is well in health, and I take care that she should not be poor in
pocket."

"But why not visit her? Perhaps, like all great men, especially of a
liberal turn of mind, you are ashamed of old friends, eh?"

"My good fellow, is that like me? Why, you know the beaux of our set
look askant on me for not keeping up my dignity, robbing only in company
with well-dressed gentlemen, and swindling under the name of a lord's
nephew. No, my reasons are these: first, you must know, that the old
dame had set her heart on my turning out an honest man."

"And so you have," interrupted Augustus,--"honest to your party; what
more would you have from either prig or politician?"

"I believe," continued Clifford, not heeding the interruption, "that my
poor mother, before she died, desired that I might be reared honestly;
and strange as it may seem to you, Dame Lobkins is a conscientious woman
in her own way,--it is not her fault if I have turned out as I have
done. Now I know well that it would grieve her to the quick to see me
what I am. Secondly, my friend, under my new names, various as they
are,--Jackson and Howard, Russell and Pigwiggin, Villiers and Gotobed,
Cavendish and Solomons,--you may well suppose that the good persons in
the neighbourhood of Thames Court have no suspicion that the adventurous
and accomplished ruffler, at present captain of this district, under the
new appellation of Lovett, is in reality no other than the obscure and
surnameless Paul of the Mug. Now you and I, Augustus, have read human
nature, though in the black letter; and I know well that were I to make
my appearance in Thames Court, and were the old lady (as she certainly
would, not from unkindness, but insobriety,--not that she lo