settled, to L'Estrange, and I should say to him
simply, 'I never asked you to save me from penury, but I do ask you
to save a daughter of my House from humiliation. I can give to her no
dowry; can her husband owe to my friend that advance in an honourable
career, that opening to energy and talent, which is more than a dowry to
generous ambition?'"

"Oh, it is in vain you would disguise your rank," cried Jemima, with
enthusiasm; "it speaks in all you utter, when your passions are moved."

The Italian did not seem flattered by that eulogy. "Pish," said he,
"there you are! rank again!"

But Jemima was right. There was something about her husband that
was grandiose and princely, whenever he escaped from his accursed
Machiavelli, and gave fair play to his heart.

And he spent the next hour or so in thinking over all that he could
do for Randal, and devising for his intended son-in-law the agreeable
surprise, which Randal was at that very time racking his yet cleverer
brains to disappoint.

These plans conned sufficiently, Riccabocca shut up his Machiavelli, and
hunted out of his scanty collection of books, Buffon on Man, and various
other psychological volumes, in which he soon became deeply absorbed.
Why were these works the object of the sage's study? Perhaps he will let
us know soon, for it is clearly a secret known to his wife; and though
she has hitherto kept one secret, that is precisely the reason why
Riccabocca would not wish long to overburden her discretion with
another.

CHAPTER XIII.

Randal reached home in time to dress for a late dinner at Baron Levy's.

The baron's style of living was of that character especially affected
both by the most acknowledged exquisites of that day, and, it must be
owned, also, by the most egregious parvenus. For it is noticeable
that it is your parvenu who always comes nearest in fashion (so far as
externals are concerned) to your genuine exquisite. It is your parvenu
who is most particular as to the cut of his coat, and the precision of
his equipage, and the minutia, of his menage. Those between the parvenu
and the exquisite, who know their own consequence, and have something
solid to rest upon, are slow in following all the caprices of fashion,
and obtuse in observation as to those niceties which neither give them
another ancestor, nor add another thousand to the account at their
banker's,--as to the last, rather indeed the contrary! There was a
decided elegance ab