t the door, "I wish you would go to Lambert's,
on Ludgate Hill, for me. He has had a bracelet of mine for nearly
three months. Do, there's a good creature. Get it if you can, and
bring it up this evening."

Crosbie, as he made his way back to his office, swore that he would
not do the bidding of the countess. He would not trudge off into
the city after her trinkets. But at five o'clock, when he left his
office, he did go there. He apologised to himself by saying that he
had nothing else to do, and bethought himself that at the present
moment his lady mother-in-law's smiles might be more convenient than
her frowns. So he went to Lambert's, on Ludgate Hill, and there
learned that the bracelet had been sent down to Courcy Castle full
two months since.

After that he dined at his club, at Sebright's. He dined alone,
sitting by no means in bliss with his half-pint of sherry on the
table before him. A man now and then came up and spoke to him, one a
few words, and another a few, and two or three congratulated him as
to his marriage; but the club was not the same thing to him as it had
formerly been. He did not stand in the centre of the rug, speaking
indifferently to all or any around him, ready with his joke, and
loudly on the alert with the last news of the day. How easy it is to
be seen when any man has fallen from his pride of place, though the
altitude was ever so small, and the fall ever so slight. Where is the
man who can endure such a fall without showing it in his face, in his
voice, in his step, and in every motion of every limb? Crosbie knew
that he had fallen, and showed that he knew it by the manner in which
he ate his mutton-chop.

At half-past eight he was again in Portman Square, and found the two
ladies crowding over a small fire in a small back drawing-room. The
furniture was all covered with brown holland, and the place had about
it that cold comfortless feeling which uninhabited rooms always
produce. Crosbie, as he had walked from the club up to Portman
Square, had indulged in some serious thoughts. The kind of life which
he had hitherto led had certainly passed away from him. He could
never again be the pet of a club, or indulged as one to whom all good
things were to be given without any labour at earning them on his own
part. Such for some years had been his good fortune, but such could
be his good fortune no longer. Was there anything within his reach
which he might take in lieu of that which he ha