en without ancestry, without
landed influence; a lucky banker, perhaps, like our friend upstairs,
may stand in the 'Gazette' to-morrow or next day as Baron or Viscount,
without one single requirement of the station, save his money."

"I confess, if I have a weakness, it is for lords," said Jekyl,
simperingly. "I suppose I must have caught it very early in life, for it
clings to me like an instinct."

"I feel happy to avow that I have none, sir. Six centuries of gentry
blood suffice for all my ambitions; but I boil over when I see the
overweening presumption of these new people."

"After all, new people, like a new watch, a new coat, and a new
carriage, have the best chance of lasting. Old and worn out are very
nearly convertible terms."

"These are sentiments, sir, which would, doubtless, do you excellent
service with the family upstairs, but are quite thrown away upon such a
mere country gentleman as myself."

Jekyl smiled, and drew up his cravat, with his habitual simpering air,
but said nothing.

"Do you purpose remaining much longer here?" asked Haggerstone,
abruptly.

"A few days, at most."

"Do you turn north or south?"

"I fancy I shall winter in Italy."

"The Onslows, I believe, are bound for Rome?"

"Can't say," was the short reply.

"Just the sort of people for Italy. The fashionables of what the Chinese
call 'second chop' go down admirably at Rome or Naples."

"Very pleasant places they are, too," said Jekyl, with a smile. "The
climate permits everything, even dubious intimacies."

Haggerstone gave a short "Ha!" at the heresy of this speech, but made no
other comment on it.

"They say that Miss Onslow will have about a hundred thousand pounds?"
said Haggerstone, with an air of inquiry.

"What a deal of maccaroni and parmesan that sum would buy!"

"Would you have her marry an Italian, sir?"

"Perhaps not, if she were to consult me on the matter," said Jekyl,
blandly; "but as this is, to say the least, not very probable, I may own
that I like the mixed marriages well enough."

"They make miserable menages, sir," broke in Haggerstone.

"But excessively agreeable houses to visit at."

"The Onslows are scarcely the people to succeed in that way," rejoined
Haggerstone, whose thoughts seemed to revolve round this family without
any power to wander from the theme. "Mere money, nothing but money to
guide them."

"Not a bad pilot, either, as times go."

Haggerstone uttered another short,