ange seemed clearly indicated in the early
boy-lover. If so, Harley must know all that was left dark to Leonard,
and to him Leonard resolved to confide the manuscripts. With this
resolution he left the cottage, resolving to return and attend the
funeral obsequies of his departed friend. Mrs. Goodyer willingly
permitted him to take away the papers she had lent to him, and added
to them the packet which had been addressed to Mrs. Bertram from the
Continent.

Musing in anxious gloom over the record he had read, Leonard entered
London on foot, and bent his way towards Harley's hotel; when, just as
he had crossed into Bond Street, a gentleman in company with Baron Levy,
and who seemed, by the flush on his brow and the sullen tone of his
voice, to have had rather an irritating colloquy with the fashionable
usurer, suddenly caught sight of Leonard, and, abruptly quitting Levy,
seized the young man by the arm.

"Excuse me, sir," said the gentleman, looking hard into Leonard's face,
"but unless these sharp eyes of mine are mistaken, which they seldom
are, I see a nephew whom, perhaps, I behaved to rather too harshly, but
who still has no right to forget Richard Avenel."

"My dear uncle," exclaimed Leonard, "this is indeed a joyful surprise;
at a time, too, when I needed joy! No; I have never forgotten your
kindness, and always regretted our estrangement."

"That is well said; give us your fist again. Let me look at you--quite
the gentleman, I declare--still so good-looking too. We Avenels always
were a handsome family.

"Good-by, Baron Levy. Need not wait for me; I am not going to run away.
I shall see you again."

"But," whispered Levy, who had followed Avenel across the street, and
eyed Leonard with a quick, curious, searching glance--"but it must be
as I say with regard to the borough; or (to be plain) you must cash the
bills on the day they are due."

"Very well, sir, very well. So you think to put the screw upon me, as
if I were a poor little householder. I understand,--my money or my
borough?"

"Exactly so," said the baron, with a soft smile.

"You shall hear from me." (Aside, as Levy strolled away)--"D---d
tarnation rascal!"

Dick Avenel then linked his arm in his nephew's, and strove for some
minutes to forget his own troubles, in the indulgence of that curiosity
in the affairs of another, which was natural to him, and in this
instance increased by the real affection which he had felt for Leonard.
But still