n
are, I believe, habitually unlucky--is like trying to fill a vessel that
has no bottom. I think, by-the-by, my hopeful nephew, Charles Oakley,
plays. Then Silas went most unjustifiably into all manner of speculations,
and your poor father had to pay everything. He lost something quite
astounding in that bank that ruined so many country gentlemen--poor Sir
Harry Shackleton, in Yorkshire, had to sell half his estate. But your kind
father went on helping him, up to his marriage--I mean in that extravagant
way which was really totally useless.'

'Has my aunt been long dead?'

'Twelve or fifteen years--more, indeed--she died before your poor mamma.
She was very unhappy, and I am sure would have given her right hand she had
never married Silas.'

'Did you like her?'

'No, dear; she was a coarse, vulgar woman.'

'Coarse and vulgar, and Uncle Silas's wife!' I echoed in extreme surprise,
for Uncle Silas was a man of fashion--a beau in his day--and might have
married women of good birth and fortune, I had no doubt, and so I expressed
myself. 'Yes, dear; so he might, and poor dear Austin was very anxious he
should, and would have helped him with a handsome settlement, I dare say,
but he chose to marry the daughter of a Denbigh innkeeper.'

'How utterly incredible!' I exclaimed.

'Not the least incredible, dear--a kind of thing not at all so uncommon as
you fancy.'

'What!--a gentleman of fashion and refinement marry a person--'

'A barmaid!--just so,' said Lady Knollys. 'I think I could count half a
dozen men of fashion who, to my knowledge, have ruined themselves just in a
similar way.'

'Well, at all events, it must be allowed that in this he proved himself
altogether unworldly.'

'Not a bit unworldly, but very vicious,' replied Cousin Monica, with a
careless little laugh. 'She was very beautiful, curiously beautiful, for
a person in her station. She was very like that Lady Hamilton who was
Nelson's sorceress--elegantly beautiful, but perfectly low and stupid.
I believe, to do him justice, he only intended to ruin her; but she was
cunning enough to insist upon marriage. Men who have never in all their
lives denied themselves the indulgence of a single fancy, cost what it
may, will not be baulked even by that condition if the _penchant_ be only
violent enough.'

I did not half understand this piece of worldly psychology, at which Lady
Knollys seemed to laugh.

'Poor Silas, certainly he struggled honestly agains