he advantage of her). But what care we men of the world?
You intend to go and play with the young Creole, no doubt, and get as
much money from him as you can. By the way, Baron, suppose he should
be a guet-apens, that young Creole? Suppose our excellent friend has
invented him up in London, and brings him down with his character for
wealth to prey upon the innocent folks here?"

"J'y ai souvent pense, milor," says the little Baron, placing his finger
to his nose very knowingly, "that Baroness is capable of anything."

"A Baron--a Baroness, que voulez-vous, my friend? I mean the late
lamented husband. Do you know who he was?"

"Intimately. A more notorious villain never dealt a card. At Venice, at
Brussels, at Spa, at Vienna--the gaols of every one of which places he
knew. I knew the man, my lord."

"I thought you would. I saw him at the Hague, where I first had the
honour of meeting you, and a more disreputable rogue never entered my
doors. A minister must open them to all sorts of people, Baron,--spies,
sharpers, ruffians of every sort."

"Parbleu, milor, how you treat them!" says my lord's companion.

"A man of my rank, my friend--of the rank I held then--of course, must
see all sorts of people--entre autres your acquaintance. What his wife
could want with such a name as his I can't conceive."

"Apparently, it was better than the lady's own."

"Effectively! So I have heard of my friend Paddy changing clothes with
the scarecrow. I don't know which name is the most distinguished, that
of the English bishop or the German baron."

"My lord," cried the other gentleman, rising and laying his hand on
a large star on his coat, "you forget that I, too, am a Baron and a
Chevalier of the Holy Roman----"

"--Order of the Spur!--not in the least, my dear knight and baron!
You will have no more wine? We shall meet at Madame de Bernstein's
to-night." The knight and baron quitted the table, felt in his
embroidered pockets, as if for money to give the waiter, who brought him
his great laced hat, and waving that menial off with a hand surrounded
by large ruffles and blazing rings, he stalked away from the room.

It was only when the person addressed as my lord had begun to speak of
the bishop's widow and the German baron's wife that Harry Warrington
was aware how his aunt and himself had been the subject of the two
gentlemen's conversation. Ere the conviction had settled itself on his
mind, one of the speakers had quitted t