ne of those women, if such there be, who do
not know when a gentleman is making up to them. She knew perfectly well
that with a very little encouragement her visitor would declare himself
a suitor. Nor, to speak truth, was she quite insensible to his handsome
person, nor quite unmoved by his flatteries. She had her weak points,
and vanity was one of them. Nor conceived she, poor lady, the slightest
suspicion that Jasper Losely was not a personage whose attentions
might flatter any woman. Though lie had not even announced a name, but,
pushing aside the footman, had sauntered in with as familiar an ease as
if he had been a first cousin; though he had not uttered a syllable that
could define his station, or attest his boasted friendship with the dear
defunct, still Mrs. Haughton implicitly believed that she was with one
of those gay chiefs of ton who had glittered round her Charlie in that
earlier morning of his life, ere he had sold out of the Guards, and
bought himself out of jail; a lord, or an honourable at least; and she
was even (I shudder to say) revolving in her mind whether it might
not be an excellent thing for her dear Lionel if she could prevail on
herself to procure for him the prop and guidance of a distinguished and
brilliant father-in-law,--rich, noble, evidently good-natured, sensible,
attractive. Oh! but the temptation was growing more and more IMMENSE!
when suddenly the door opened, and in sprang Lionel crying out, "Mother
dear, the Colonel has come with me on purpose to--"

He stopped short, staring hard at Jasper Losely. That gentleman advanced
a few steps, extending his hand, but came to an abrupt halt on seeing
Colonel Morley's figure now filling up the doorway. Not that he feared
recognition: the Colonel did not know him by sight, but he knew by sight
the Colonel. In his own younger day, when lolling over the rails of
Rotten Row, he had enviously noted the leaders of fashion pass by, and
Colonel Morley had not escaped his observation. Colonel Morley, indeed,
was one of those men who by name and repute are sure to be known to all
who, like Jasper Losely in his youth, would fain learn something about
that gaudy, babbling, and remorseless world which, like the sun, either
vivifies or corrupts, according to the properties of the object on
which it shines. Strange to say, it was the mere sight of the real fine
gentleman that made the mock fine gentleman shrink and collapse. Though
Jasper Losely knew himse