ascal: I remember to have heard of her. She is here still? And ruined,
of course?'

'In purse.'

'That cannot be without the loss of reputation.'

'Chloe's champion will grant that she is exposed to the evils of
improvidence. The more brightly shine her native purity, her goodness
of heart, her trustfulness. She is a lady whose exaltation glows in her
abasement.'

'She has, I see, preserved her comeliness,' observed the duke, with a
smile.

'Despite the flying of the roses, which had not her heart's patience.
'Tis now the lily that reigns. So, then, Chloe shall be attached to the
duchess during her stay, and unless the devil himself should interfere,
I guarantee her Grace against any worse harm than experience; and that,'
Mr. Beamish added, as the duke raised his arms at the fearful word,
'that shall be mild. Play she will; she is sure to play. Put it down
at a thousand. We map her out a course of permissible follies, and she
plays to lose the thousand by degrees, with as telling an effect upon a
connubial conscience as we can produce.'

'A thousand,' said the duke, 'will be cheap indeed. I think now I have
had a description of this fair Chloe, and from an enthusiast; a brune?
elegantly mannered and of a good landed family; though she has thought
proper to conceal her name. And that will be our difficulty, cousin
Beamish.'

'She was, under my dominion, Miss Martinsward,' Mr. Beamish pursued.
'She came here very young, and at once her suitors were legion. In the
way of women, she chose the worst among them; and for the fellow Caseldy
she sacrificed the fortune she had inherited of a maternal uncle. To
release him from prison, she paid all his debts; a mountain of bills,
with the lawyers piled above--Pelion upon Ossa, to quote our poets.
In fact, obeying the dictates of a soul steeped in generosity, she
committed the indiscretion to strip herself, scandalizing propriety.
This was immediately on her coming of age; and it was the death-blow to
her relations with her family. Since then, honoured even by rakes, she
has lived impoverished at the Wells. I dubbed her Chloe, and man
or woman disrespectful to Chloe packs. From being the victim of her
generous disposition, I could not save her; I can protect her from the
shafts of malice.'

'She has no passion for play?' inquired the duke.

'She nourishes a passion for the man for whom she bled, to the exclusion
of the other passions. She lives, and I believe I may say