his larger inheritance until he should feel some
necessity for doing so. He now felt no small satisfaction in the thought
that he was independent of Mr. Screw and of every one else. It would
have been an easy matter, he knew, to clear up the whole difficulty in
twenty-four hours, by simply asking the Duke to vouch for him; and
before hearing of Margaret's trouble he had had every intention of
pursuing that course. But now that he was determined to go to Russia in
her behalf, his own difficulty, if he did not take steps for removing
it, furnished him with an excellent excuse for the journey, without
telling the Countess that he was going for the sole purpose of
recovering her fortune, as he otherwise must have told her. Had he known
the full extent of Barker's intentions he might have acted differently,
but as yet his instinct against that ingenious young gentleman was
undefined and vague.

CHAPTER XV.

The cliff at Newport--the long winding path that follows it from the
great beach to the point of the island, always just above the sea,
hardly once descending to it, as the evenly-gravelled path, too narrow
for three, though far too broad for two, winds by easy curves through
the grounds, and skirts the lawns of the million-getters who have their
tents and their houses therein--it is a pretty place. There the rich men
come and seethe in their gold all summer; and Lazarus comes to see
whether he cannot marry Dives's daughter. And the choleric architect,
dissatisfied with the face of Nature, strikes her many a dread blow, and
produces an unhealthy eruption wherever he strikes, and calls the things
he makes houses. Here also, on Sunday afternoon, young gentlemen and
younger ladies patrol in pairs, and discourse of the most saccharine
inanities, not knowing what they shall say, and taking no thought, for
obvious reasons. And gardeners sally forth in the morning and trim the
paths with strange-looking instruments--the earth-barbers, who lather
and shave and clip Nature into patterns, and the world into a quincunx.

It is a pretty place. There is nothing grand, not even anything natural
in Newport, but it is very pretty for all that. For an artificial place,
destined to house the most artificial people in the world during three
months of the year, it is as pleasing as it can be in a
light-comedy-scenery style. Besides, the scenery in Newport is very
expensive, and it is impossible to spend so much money without produ