n's prodigious successes,
and the advance which he had made in their wealthy aunt's favour.

After a fortnight of Tunbridge, Mr. Harry had become quite a personage.
He knew all the good company in the place. Was it his fault if he became
acquainted with the bad likewise? Was he very wrong in taking the world
as he found it, and drinking from that sweet sparkling pleasure-cup,
which was filled for him to the brim? The old aunt enjoyed his triumphs,
and for her part only bade him pursue his enjoyments. She was not a
rigorous old moralist, nor, perhaps, a very wholesome preceptress for
youth. If the Cattarina wrote him billets-doux, I fear Aunt Bernstein
would have bade him accept the invitations: but the lad had brought with
him from his colonial home a stock of modesty which he still wore
along with the honest homespun linen. Libertinism was rare in those
thinly-peopled regions from which he came. The vices of great cities
were scarce known or practised in the rough towns of the American
continent. Harry Warrington blushed like a girl at the daring talk of
his new European associates: even Aunt Bernstein's conversation and
jokes astounded the young Virginian, so that the worldly old woman would
call him Joseph, or simpleton.

But, however innocent he was, the world gave him credit for being as
bad as other folks. How was he to know that he was not to associate with
that saucy Cattarina? He had seen my Lord March driving her about in his
lordship's phaeton. Harry thought there was no harm in giving her his
arm, and parading openly with her in the public walks. She took a fancy
to a trinket at the toy-shop; and, as his pockets were full of money,
he was delighted to make her a present of the locket, which she coveted.
The next day it was a piece of lace: again Harry gratified her. The
next day it was something else: there was no end to Madame Cattarina's
fancies: but here the young gentleman stopped, turning off her request
with a joke and a laugh. He was shrewd enough, and not reckless or
prodigal, though generous. He had no idea of purchasing diamond drops
for the petulant little lady's pretty ears.

But who was to give him credit for his Modesty? Old Bernstein insisted
upon believing that her nephew was playing Don Juan's part, and
supplanting my Lord March. She insisted the more when poor Maria was
by; loving to stab the tender heart of that spinster, and enjoying her
niece's piteous silence and discomfiture.

"Why