tment, and barred and
bolted the door, even before he looked on the table where his
dispatch-box was placed.

Lord Etherington had, as is usual, one key to the box which held his
letters, his confidential servant being intrusted with the other; so
that, under the protection of a patent lock, his dispatches escaped all
risk of being tampered with,--a precaution not altogether unnecessary on
the part of those who frequent hotels and lodging-houses.

"By your leave, Mr. Bramah," said the Earl, as he applied the key,
jesting, as it were, with his own agitation, as he would have done with
that of a third party. The lid was raised, and displayed the packet, the
appearance and superscription of which had attracted his observation but
a short while before in the post-office. _Then_ he would have given much
to be possessed of the opportunity which was now in his power; but many
pause on the brink of a crime, who have contemplated it at a distance
without scruple. Lord Etherington's first impulse had led him to poke
the fire; and he held in his hand the letter which he was more than half
tempted to commit, without even breaking the seal, to the fiery element.
But, though sufficiently familiarized with guilt, he was not as yet
acquainted with it in its basest shapes--he had not yet acted with
meanness, or at least with what the world terms such. He had been a
duellist, the manners of the age authorized it--a libertine, the world
excused it to his youth and condition--a bold and successful gambler,
for that quality he was admired and envied; and a thousand other
inaccuracies, to which these practices and habits lead, were easily
slurred over in a man of quality, with fortune and spirit to support his
rank. But his present meditated act was of a different kind. Tell it not
in Bond Street, whisper it not on St. James's pavement!--it amounted to
an act of petty larceny, for which the code of honour would admit of no
composition.

Lord Etherington, under the influence of these recollections, stood for
a few minutes suspended--But the devil always finds logic to convince
his followers. He recollected the wrong done to his mother, and to
himself, her offspring, to whom his father had, in the face of the whole
world, imparted the hereditary rights, of which he was now, by a
posthumous deed, endeavouring to deprive the memory of the one and the
expectations of the other. Surely, the right being his own, he had a
full title, by the most