lent adviser.

Of Mr. Douce, Lord Vargrave had seen but little; they were not thrown
together. But Lord Vargrave, who thought every rich man might, some
time or other, become a desirable acquaintance, regularly asked him once
every year to dinner; and twice in return he had dined with Mr. Douce,
in one of the most splendid villas, and off some of the most splendid
plate it had ever been his fortune to witness and to envy!--so that
the little favour he was about to ask was but a slight return for Lord
Vargrave's condescension.

He found the banker in his private sanctum, his carriage at the door;
for it was just four o'clock, an hour in which Mr. Douce regularly
departed to Caserta, as his aforesaid villa was somewhat affectedly
styled.

Mr. Douce was a small man, a nervous man; he did not seem quite master
of his own limbs: when he bowed he seemed to be making you a present of
his legs; when he sat down, he twitched first on one side, then on the
other, thrust his hands into his pockets, then took them out, and looked
at them, as if in astonishment, then seized upon a pen, by which they
were luckily provided with incessant occupation. Meanwhile, there was
what might fairly be called a constant play of countenance: first he
smiled, then looked grave; now raised his eyebrows, till they rose like
rainbows, to the horizon of his pale, straw-coloured hair; and next
darted them down, like an avalanche, over the twinkling, restless,
fluttering, little blue eyes, which then became almost invisible. Mr.
Douce had, in fact, all the appearance of a painfully shy man, which
was the more strange, as he had the reputation of enterprise, and even
audacity, in the business of his profession, and was fond of the society
of the great.

"I have called on you, my dear sir," said Lord Vargrave, after the
preliminary salutations, "to ask a little favour, which, if the least
inconvenient, have no hesitation in refusing. You know how I am situated
with regard to my ward, Miss Cameron; in a few months I hope she will be
Lady Vargrave."

Mr. Douce showed three small teeth, which were all that, in the front of
his mouth, fate had left him; and then, as if alarmed at the indelicacy
of a smile upon such a subject, pushed back his chair, and twitched up
his blotting-paper-coloured trousers.

"Yes, in a few months I hope she will be Lady Vargrave; and you know
then, Mr. Douce, that I shall be in no want of money."

"I hope--that is to say, I