ut that little was not to their advantage. Some were wealthy
voluptuaries, glad to propagate their own habits of extravagance among
those they suspected of fortunes smaller than their own. Others were
penniless adventurers, speculating upon everything that might turn to
their profit. All were men of pleasure, and of that indolent, lounging,
purposeless character so peculiarly unpleasing to those who have led
active lives, and been always immersed in the cares and interests of
business.

Such men, he rightly judged, were dangerous associates to his son,
the very worst acquaintances for Kate, in whom already he was deeply
interested; but still no actual stain of dishonor, no palpable flaw,
could be detected in their fame, till the arrival of Lord Norwood added
his name to the list.

To receive a man of whose misconduct in England he had acquired every
proof, was a step beyond his endurance. Here or never must he take
his stand; and manfully he did so, at first, by calm argument and
remonstrance, and at last by firm resolution and determination. Without
adverting to what had passed between the Viscount and himself, the
letter he addressed to Lady Hester conveyed his unalterable resolve not
to know Lord Norwood. Lady Hester's reply was not less peremptory, and
scarcely as courteous. The correspondence continued with increasing
warmth on both sides, till Sir Stafford palpably hinted at the possible
consequences of a spirit of discordance and disagreement so ill-adapted
to conjugal welfare. Her Ladyship caught up the suggestion with avidity,
and professed that, whatever scruples his delicacy might feel, to hers
there was none in writing the word, "Separation."

If the thought had already familiarized itself to his mind, the word had
not; and strange it is that the written syllables should have a power
and meaning that the idea itself could never realize.

To men who have had little publicity in their lives, and that little
always of an honorable nature, there is no thought so poignantly
miserable as the dread of a scandalous notoriety. To associate their
names with anything that ministers to gossip; to make them tea-table
talk; still worse, to expose them to sneering and impertinent
criticisms, by revealing the secrets of their domesticity, is a torture
to which no mere physical suffering has anything to compare. Sir
Stafford Onslow was a true representative of this class of feeling. The
sight of his name in the list of d