him, or will you not rather stay at home,
and enjoy your new fortunes,--hunt, race, dine out, dance, vote in
the House of Commons, and, in short, do all that an Englishman and a
gentleman should do? Ornamento e splendor del secolo nostro. Write me a
line whenever you have nothing better to do.

And believe me, Most truly yours, HAVERFIELD.

Will you sell your black mare, or will you buy my brown one? Utrum horum
mavis accipe, the only piece of Latin I remember.

LETTER FROM LORD ASPEDEN.

My Dear Linden,--Suffer me to enter most fully into your feeling. Death,
my friend, is common to all: we must submit to its dispensations. I
heard accidentally of the great fortune left you by Mr. Talbot (your
father, I suppose I may venture to call him). Indeed, though there is a
silly prejudice against illegitimacy, yet as our immortal bard says,--

"Wherefore base?
When thy dimensions are as well compact,
Thy mind as generous and thy shape as true
As honest madam's issue!"

For my part, my dear Linden, I say, on your behalf, that it is very
likely that you are a natural son, for such are always the luckiest and
the best.

You have probably heard of the honour his Majesty has conferred on me,
in appointing to my administration the city of ----. As the choice of
a secretary has been left to me, I need not say how happy I shall be to
keep my promise to you. Indeed, as I told Lord ---- yesterday morning,
I do not know anywhere a young man who has more talent, or who plays
better on the flute.

Adieu, my dear young friend, and believe me, Very truly yours,

ASPEDEN.

LETTER FROM MADAME DE LA MERONVILLE. (Translated.)

You have done me wrong,--great wrong. I loved you,--I waited on
you, tended you, nursed you, gave all up for you; and you forsook
me,--forsook me without a word. True, that you have been engaged in a
melancholy duty, but, at least, you had time to write a line, to cast a
thought, to one who had shown for you the love that I have done. But we
will pass over all this: I will not reproach you; it is beneath me. The
vicious upbraid: the virtuous forgive! I have for several days left your
house. I should never have come to it, had you not been wounded, and, as
I fondly imagined, for my sake. Return when you will, I shall no longer
be there to persecute and torment you.

Pardon this letter. I have said too much for myself,--a hundred times
too much to you; but I s