. Robert
Hobbs in a few weeks, yet I do not know a more acute, intelligent young
man anywhere. Highly respectable, with an independent fortune; his
father is lately dead, and made at least thirty thousand pounds in
trade. His brother Edward is also dead; so he has the bulk of the
property, and he follows his profession merely for amusement. He would
consider it a great honour."

"And where does he live?"

"Oh, not in this county,--a long way off; close to -----; but it is all
in your lordship's road. A very nice house he has, too. I have known his
family since I was a boy; it is astonishing how his father improved the
place,--it was a poor little lath-and-plaster cottage when the late Mr.
Hobbs bought it, and it is now a very excellent family house."

"Well, you shall give me the address and a letter of introduction,
and so much for that matter. But to return to politics;" and here Lord
Vargrave ran eloquently on, till Mr. Winsley thought him the only man in
the world who could save the country from that utter annihilation, the
possibility of which he had never even suspected before.

It may be as well to add, that, on wishing Lord Vargrave good-night,
Mr. Winsley whispered in his ear, "Your lordship's friend, Lord Staunch,
need be under no apprehension,--we are all right!"

CHAPTER III.

THIS is the house, sir.--_Love's Pilgrimage_, Act iv, sc. 2.

Redeunt Saturnia regna.*--VIRGIL.

* "A former state of things returns."

THE next morning, Lumley and his slender companion were rolling rapidly
over the same road on which, sixteen years ago, way-worn and weary,
Alice Darvil had first met with Mrs. Leslie; they were talking about a
new opera-dancer as they whirled by the very spot.

It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, the next day, when the
carriage stopped at a cast-iron gate, on which was inscribed this
epigraph, "Hobbs' lodge--Ring the Bell."

"A snug place enough," said Lord Vargrave, as they were waiting the
arrival of the footman to unbar the gate.

"Yes," said Mr. Howard. "If a retired Cit could be transformed into a
house, such is the house he would be."

Poor Dale Cottage,--the home of Poetry and Passion! But change visits
the Commonplace as well as the Romantic. Since Alice had pressed to
that cold grating her wistful eyes, time had wrought his allotted
revolutions; the old had died, the young grown up. Of the children
playing on the lawn, death had claimed some, and ma