sly set Bag at his worthy sire with a little information. We
shall have a perfect swamp, and then it will be strength against speed;
the old story. Damn the St. Leger. I am sick of it.'

'Pooh! pooh! think of the little Dacre!'

'Think of her, my dear fellow! I think of her too much. I should
absolutely have diddled Hounslow, if it had not been for her confounded
pretty face flitting about my stupid brain. I saw you speaking to
Guardy. You managed that business well.'

'Why, as I do all things, I flatter myself, Lucy. Do you know Lord St.
Jerome?'

'Verbally. We have exchanged monosyllables; but he is of the other set.'

'He is cursedly familiar with the little Dacre. As the friend of her
father, I think I shall interfere. Is there anything in it, think you?'

'Oh! no; she is engaged to another.'

'Engaged!' said the Duke, absolutely turning pale.

'Do you remember a Dacre at Eton?'

'A Dacre at Eton!' mused the Duke. At another time it would not have
been in his power to have recalled the stranger to his memory; but this
evening the train of association had been laid, and after struggling a
moment with his mind he had the man. 'To be sure I do: Arundel Dacre, an
odd sort of a fellow; but he was my senior.'

'Well, that is the man; a nephew of Guardy, and cousin, of course, to La
Bellissima. He inherits, you know, all the property. She will not have
a sou; but old Dacre, as you call him, has managed pretty well, and
Monsieur Arundel is to compensate for the entail by presenting him with
a grandson.'

'The deuce!'

'The deuce, indeed! Often have I broken his head. Would that I had to a
little more purpose!'

'Let us do it now!'

'He is not here, otherwise----One dislikes a spooney to be successful.'

'Where are our friends?'

'Annesley with the Duchess, and Squib with the Duke at ecarte.'

'Success attend them both!'

'Amen!'

CHAPTER IV.

_Innocence and Experience_

TO FEEL that the possessions of an illustrious ancestry are about to
slide from out your line for ever; that the numerous tenantry, who look
up to you with the confiding eye that the most liberal parvenu cannot
attract, will not count you among their lords; that the proud park,
filled with the ancient and toppling trees that your fathers planted,
will yield neither its glory nor its treasures to your seed, and that
the old gallery, whose walls are hung with pictures more cherished than
the collections of kings, will not