that
he should have a whole collection of French novels before he awoke. And
assuring him over and over again that he looked upon him as the most
fortunate of all his friends, and that if he broke the bank at Crocky's
to-night, which he fancied he should, he would send him two or three
thousand pounds; at the same time he shook him heartily by the hand,
and descended the staircase of the spunging-house, humming _Vive la
Bagatelle_.

CHAPTER XXI.

_The Crisis_.

ALTHOUGH, when Ferdinand was once more left alone to his reflections, it
did not appear to him that anything had occurred which should change his
opinion of his forlorn lot, there was something, nevertheless, inspiring
in the visit of his friend Count Mirabel. It did not seem to him,
indeed, that he was one whit nearer extrication from his difficulties
than before; and as for the wild hopes as to Henrietta, he dismissed
them from his mind as the mere fantastic schemes of a sanguine spirit,
and yet his gloom, by some process difficult to analyse, had in great
measure departed. It could not be the champagne, for that was a remedy
he had previously tried; it was in some degree doubtless the magic
sympathy of a joyous temperament: but chiefly it might, perhaps, be
ascribed to the flattering conviction that he possessed the hearty
friendship of a man whose good-will was, in every view of the case, a
very enviable possession. With such a friend as Mirabel, he could not
deem himself quite so unlucky as in the morning. If he were fortunate,
and fortunate so unexpectedly, in this instance, he might be so in
others. A vague presentiment that he had seen the worst of life came
over him. It was equally in vain to justify the consoling conviction or
to resist it; and Ferdinand Armine, although in a spunging-house, fell
asleep in better humour with his destiny than he had been for the last
eight months.

His dreams were charming: he fancied that he was at Armine, standing
by the Barbary rose-tree. It was moonlight; it was, perhaps, a slight
recollection of the night he had looked upon the garden from the window
of his chamber, the night after he had first seen Henrietta. Suddenly,
Henrietta Temple appeared at his window, and waved her hand to him with
a smiling face. He immediately plucked for her a flower, and stood with
his offering beneath her window. She was in a riding-habit, and she told
him that she had just returned from Italy. He invited her to descend