ese fair Armidas with a look of such
mild reproach, such sweet compassion,--not shaking off the hand, in
his chivalrous devotion to the sex, which extended even to all its
outcasts,--that each bold eye felt abashed. The hand was timidly and
involuntarily withdrawn from the arm, and my uncle passed his way.

He threaded the crowd, passed out at the farther door, and I, guessing
his intention, was in waiting for his steps in the street.

"Now home at last, thank Heaven!" thought I. Mistaken still! My uncle
went first towards that popular haunt which I have since discovered is
called "the Shades;" but he soon re-emerged, and finally he knocked at
the door of a private house in one of the streets out of St. James's. It
was opened jealously, and closed as he entered, leaving me without. What
could this house be? As I stood and watched, some other men approached:
again the low single knock, again the jealous opening and the stealthy
entrance.

A policeman passed and re-passed me. "Don't be tempted, young man," said
he, looking hard at me: "take my advice, and go home."

"What is that house, then?" said I, with a sort of shudder at this
ominous warning.

"Oh! you know."

"Not I. I am new to London."

"It is a hell," said the policeman, satisfied, by my frank manner, that
I spoke the truth.

"God bless me,--a what? I could not have heard you rightly!"

"A hell,--a gambling-house!"

"Oh!" and I moved on. Could Captain Roland, the rigid, the thrifty,
the penurious, be a gambler? The light broke on me at once: the unhappy
father sought his son! I leaned against the post, and tried hard not to
sob.

By and by, I heard the door open; the Captain came out and took the way
homeward. I ran on before, and got in first, to the inexpressible relief
both of father and mother, who had not seen me since breakfast, and who
were in equal consternation at my absence. I submitted to be scolded
with a good grace. "I had been sight-seeing, and lost my way;" begged
for some supper, and slunk to bed; and five minutes afterwards the
Captain's jaded step came wearily up the stairs.

PART VI.

CHAPTER I.

"I don't know that," said my father.

What is it my father does not know? My father does not know that
"happiness is our being's end and aim."

And pertinent to what does my father reply, by words so sceptical, to an
assertion so seldom disputed?

Reader, Mr. Trevanion has been half an hour seated in our little
draw