prevent his having his way!" ejaculated his quondam friend.

But on the next day, after ten thousand men in clubs and coteries had
talked the news over; after the evening had repeated and improved the
delightful theme of our "morning contemporaries;" after Calypso and
Eucharis driving together in the Park, and reconciled now, had kissed
their hands to Lord Farintosh, and made him their compliments--after a
night of natural doubt, disturbance, defiance, fury--as men whispered
to each other at the club where his lordship dined, and at the theatre
where he took his recreation--after an awful time at breakfast in which
Messrs. Bowman, valet, and Todhunter and Henchman, captains of the
Farintosh bodyguard, all got their share of kicks and growling--behold
Lady Glenlivat came back to the charge again; and this time with such
force that poor Lord Farintosh was shaken indeed.

Her ladyship's ally was no other than Miss Newcome herself; from whom
Lord Farintosh's mother received, by that day's post, a letter, which
she was commissioned to read to her son.

"Dear Madam" (wrote the young lady in her firmest handwriting)--"Mamma
is at this moment in a state of such grief and dismay at the cruel
misfortune and humiliation which has just befallen our family, that she
is really not able to write to you as she ought, and this task, painful
as it is, must be mine. Dear Lady Glenlivat, the kindness and confidence
which I have ever received from you and yours, merit truth, and most
grateful respect and regard from me. And I feel after the late fatal
occurrence, what I have often and often owned to myself though I did not
dare to acknowledge it, that I ought to release Lord F., at once and for
ever, from an engagement which he could never think of maintaining with
a family so unfortunate as ours. I thank him with all my heart for his
goodness in bearing with my humours so long; if I have given him pain,
as I know I have sometimes, I beg his pardon, and would do so on my
knees. I hope and pray he may be happy, as I feared he never could
be with me. He has many good and noble qualities; and, in bidding him
farewell, I trust I may retain his friendship, and that he will believe
in the esteem and gratitude of your most sincere, Ethel Newcome."

A copy of this farewell letter was seen by a lady who happened to be a
neighbour of Miss Newcome's when the family misfortune occurred, and to
whom, in her natural dismay and grief, the young lad