escribe. I have seen him--spoken with him in his youth--hoped then
to assist in a task of conciliation, pardon. Nothing about him then
foreboded so fearful a corruption. He might be vain, extravagant,
selfish, false--Ah, yes! he was false indeed! but still the ruffian
you paint, banded with common criminals, cannot be the same as the gay,
dainty, perfumed, fair-faced adventurer with whom my ill-fated playmate
fled her father's house. You shake your head--what is it you advise?"

"To expedite your own project--to make at once the resolute attempt to
secure to this poor child her best, her most rightful protector--to let
whatever can be done to guard her from danger or reclaim her father from
courses to which despair may be driving him--to let, I say, all this
be done by the person whose interest in doing it effectively is so
paramount--whose ability to judge of and decide on the wisest means
is so immeasurably superior to all that lies within our own limited
experience of life."

"But you forget that our friend told me that he had appealed to--to
Mr. Darrell on his return to England: that Mr. Darrell had peremptorily
refused to credit the claim; and had sternly said that, even if Sophy's
birth could be proved, he would not place under his father's roof the
grandchild of William Losely."

"True; and yet you hoped reasonably enough to succeed where he, poor
outcast, had failed."

"Yes, yes; I did hope that Sophy--her manners formed, her education
completed--all her natural exquisite graces so cultured and refined, as
to justify pride in the proudest kindred--I did so hope that she should
be brought, as it were by accident, under his notice; that she would
interest and charm him; and that the claim, when made, might thus be
welcomed with delight. Mr. Darrell's abrupt return to a seclusion so
rigid forbids the opportunity that ought easily have been found or made
if he had remained in London. But suddenly, violently to renew a
claim that such a man has rejected, before he has ever seen that dear
child--before his heart and his taste plead for her--who would dare to
do it? or, if so daring, who could hope success?"

"My dear Lady Montfort, my noble cousin, with repute as spotless as the
ermine of your robe--who but you?"

"Who but I? Any one. Mr. Darrell would not even read through a letter
addressed to him by me."

George stared with astonishment. Caroline's face was downcast--her
attitude that of profound humiliated