l, he kindly sent me two or three invitations
to dinner, which my frequent absence from town would not allow me to
accept. I ought to call on him; and, as I feel ashamed not to have done
so before, I wish you would accompany me to his house. One happy word
from you would save me a relapse into stutter. When I want to apologise
I always stutter."

"Darrell has left town," said the Colonel, roughly, "you have missed an
opportunity that will never occur again. The most charming companion; an
intellect so manly, yet so sweet! I shall never find such another." And
for the first time in thirty years a tear stole to Alban Morley's eye.

GEORGE.--"When did he leave town?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Three days ago."

GEORGE.--"Three days ago! and for the Continent again?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"No; for the Hermitage, George. I have such a letter
from him! You know how many years he has been absent from the world.
When, this year, he re-appeared, he and I grew more intimate than we had
ever been since we had left school; for though the same capital held us
before, he was then too occupied for much familiarity with an idle man
like me. But just when I was intertwining what is left of my life with
the bright threads of his, he snaps the web asunder: he quits this
London world again; says he will return to it no more."

GEORGE.--"Yet I did hear that he proposed to renew his parliamentary
career; nay, that he was about to form a second marriage, with Honoria
Vipont?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Mere gossip-not true. No, he will never marry again.
Three days ago I thought it certain that he would--certain that I should
find for my old age a nook in his home--the easiest chair in his social
circle; that my daily newspaper would have a fresh interest, in the
praise of his name or the report of his speech; that I should walk
proudly into White's, sure to hear there of Guy Darrell; that I should
keep from misanthropical rust my dry knowledge of life, planning
shrewd panegyrics to him of a young happy wife, needing all his
indulgence--panegyrics to her of the high-minded sensitive man, claiming
tender respect and delicate soothing;--that thus, day by day, I should
have made more pleasant the home in which I should have planted myself,
and found in his children boys to lecture and girls to spoil. Don't be
jealous, George. I like your wife, I love your little ones, and you
will inherit all I have to leave. But to an old bachelor, who would keep
young to