ashel's."

[Illustration: 222]

"Very well. I 'll be punctual. At eleven on Saturday expect me. May I
bring that little thing of yours for two hundred pounds with it, Mr.
Linton?"

"Of course you may not. Where do you expect me to find money for the
debts of last year? My dear Hoare, I have no more memory for such things
than I have for the sorrows of childhood."

"Ah, very well, sir, we'll keep it over," said Hoare, smiling.

"Let him bring it," whispered Cashel, "and include it in one of my
bills. There's nothing so worrying as an overhanging debt."

"Do you think so?" replied Linton. "Bless me, I never felt that. A life
without duns is like a sky without a cloud, very agreeable for a short
time, but soon becoming wearisome from very monotony. You grow as sick
of uninterrupted blue as ever you did of impending rain and storm. Let
me have the landscape effect of light and shadow over existence. The
brilliant bits are then ten times as glorious in color, and the dark
shadows of one's mortgages only heighten the warmth of the picture. Ask
Hoare, there, _he'll_ tell you. I actually cherish my debts."

"Very true, sir; you cannot bear to part with them either."

"Well said, old Moses; the 'interest' they inspire is too strong for
one's feelings. But hark! I hear some fresh arrivals without. Another
boat-load of the d----d has crossed the Styx."

"Thanks for the simile, sir," said Hoare, smiling faintly,--"on
Saturday."

"On Saturday," repeated Linton.

Cashel lingered as he left the room; a longing desire to speak one
word, to ask one question of Hoare--who was this Leicester of whom he
spoke?--was uppermost in his mind, and yet he did not dare to own he had
heard the words. He could have wished, too, to communicate his thoughts
to Linton, but a secret fear told him that perhaps the mystery might be
one he would not wish revealed.

"Why so thoughtful, Roland?" said Linton, after traversing some streets
in silence. "My friend Hoare has not terrified you?"

"No, I was not thinking of him," said Cashel. "What kind of a character
does he bear?"

"Pretty much that of all his class. Sharp enough, when sharpness is
called for, and seemingly liberal if liberality pays better. To me he
has been ever generous. Why, Heaven knows; I suppose the secret will out
one of these days. I'm sure I don't ask for it."

Linton's flippancy, for the first time, was distasteful to Cashel. If
the school in which he was bred taught