er that day come--I settle on
Lionel Haughton and his heirs five thousand a-year; and if, with gentle
blood, youth, good looks, and a heart of gold, that fortune does not
allow him to aspire to any girl whose hand he covets, I can double
it, and still be rich enough to buy a superior companion in Honoria
Vipont--"

MORLEY.--"Don't say buy--"

DARRELL.--"Ay, and still be young enough to catch a butterfly in Lady
Adela--still be bold enough to chain a panther in Flora Vyvyan. Let
the world know--your world in each nook of its gaudy auction-mart--that
Lione: Haughton is no pauper cousin--no penniless fortune-hunter. I wish
that world to be kind to him while he is yet young, and can enjoy it.
Ah, Morley, Pleasure, like Punishment, hobbles after us, _pede claudo_.
What would have delighted us yesterday does not catch us up till
to-morrow, and yesterday's pleasure is not the morrow's. A pennyworth
of sugar-plums would have made our eyes sparkle when we were scrawling
pot-hooks at a preparatory school, but no one gave us sugar-plums
then. Now every day at dessert France heaps before us her daintiest
sugar-plums in gilt _bonbonnieres_. Do you ever covet them? I never do.
Let Lionel have his sugar-plums in time. And as we talk, there he comes.
Lionel, how are you?"

"I resign you to Lionel's charge now," said the Colonel, glancing at his
watch. "I have an engagement--trouble some. Two silly friends of mine
have been quarrelling--high words--in an age when duels are out of the
question. I have promised to meet another man, and draw up the form for
a mutual apology. High words are so stupid nowadays. No option but to
swallow them up again if they were as high as steeples. Adieu for the
present. We meet to-night at Lady Dulcett's concert?"

"Yes," said Darrell. "I promised Miss Vyvyan to be there, and keep her
from disturbing the congregation. You Lionel, will come with me."

LIONELL (embarrassed).--"No; you must excuse me. I have long been
engaged elsewhere."

"That's a pity," said the Colonel, gravely. "Lady Dulcett's conceit is
just one of the places where a young man should be seen." Colonel Morley
waved his hand with his usual languid elegance, and his hack cantered
off with him, stately as a charger, easy as a rocking-horse.

"Unalterable man," said Darrell, as his eye followed the horseman's
receding figure. "'Through all the mutations on Time's dusty
high-road-stable as a milestone. Just what Alban Morley was as a