always of advantage to me, and I did not fail to seek it at
this juncture, and to implore his counsel as regarded my pursuit of the
widow. I told him the situation of her heart, as I have described it in
the last chapter; of the progress that young Poynings had made in her
affections, and of her forgetfulness of her old admirer; and I got a
letter, in reply, full of excellent suggestions, by which I did not fail
to profit. The kind Chevalier prefaced it by saying, that he was for
the present boarding in the Minorite convent at Brussels; that he had
thoughts of making his salut there, and retiring for ever from the
world, devoting himself to the severest practices of religion. Meanwhile
he wrote with regard to the lovely widow: it was natural that a person
of her vast wealth and not disagreeable person should have many adorers
about her; and that, as in her husband's lifetime she had shown herself
not at all disinclined to receive my addresses, I must make no manner
of doubt I was not the first person whom she had so favoured; nor was I
likely to be the last.

'I would, my dear child,' he added, 'that the ugly attainder round my
neck, and the resolution I have formed of retiring from a world of sin
and vanity altogether, did not prevent me from coming personally to your
aid in this delicate crisis of your affairs; for, to lead them to a
good end, it requires not only the indomitable courage, swagger, and
audacity, which you possess beyond any young man I have ever known' (as
for the 'swagger,' as the Chevalier calls it, I deny it in toto, being
always most modest in my demeanour); 'but though you have the vigour to
execute, you have not the ingenuity to suggest plans of conduct for the
following out of a scheme that is likely to be long and difficult of
execution. Would you have ever thought of the brilliant scheme of the
Countess Ida, which so nearly made you the greatest fortune in Europe,
but for the advice and experience of a poor old man, now making up his
accounts with the world, and about to retire from it for good and all?

'Well, with regard to the Countess of Lyndon, your manner of winning her
is quite en l'air at present to me; nor can I advise day by day, as
I would I could, according to circumstances as they arise. But your
general scheme should be this. If I remember the letters you used to
have from her during the period of the correspondence which the silly
woman entertained you with, much high-flown sent