ng, was
the solitary light that illuminated the gloom of his character.

He had joined the regiment Kellett formerly belonged to at Malta, a
few weeks before the other had sold out, and having met accidentally in
Ireland, they had renewed the acquaintance, stimulated by that strange
sympathy which attracts to each other those whose narrow circumstances
would seem, in some shape or other, the effects of a cruelty practised
on them by the world. Kellett was rather flattered by the recognition of
him who recalled the brighter hours of his life, while he entertained
a kind of admiration for the worldly wit and cleverness of one who, in
talk at least, was a match for the "shrewdest fellow going." Beecher
liked the society of a man who thus looked up to him, and who could
listen unweariedly to his innumerable plans for amassing wealth and
fortune, all of which only needed some little preliminary aid--some
miserable thousand or two to start with--to make them as "rich as
Rothschild."

Never was there such a Tantalus view of life as he could
picture,--stores of gold, mines of unbounded wealth,--immense stakes
to be won here, _rouge et noir_ banks to be broke there,--all actually
craving to be appropriated, if one only had a little of that shining
metal which, like the water thrown down in a pump, is the needful
preliminary to securing a supply of the fluid afterwards.

The imaginative faculty plays a great part in the existence of the
reduced gentleman! Kellett actually revelled in the gorgeous visions
this friend could conjure up. There was that amount of plausibility in
his reasonings that satisfied scruple as to practicability, and made him
regard Beecher as the most extraordinary instance of a grand financial
genius lost to the world,--a great Chancellor of the Exchequer born to
devise budgets in obscurity!

Bella took a very different measure of him: she read him with all a
woman's nicest appreciation, and knew him thoroughly; she saw, however,
how much his society pleased her father, how their Sunday strolls
together rallied him from the dreary depression the week was sure to
leave behind it, and how these harmless visions of imaginary prosperity
served to cheer the gloom of actual poverty. She, therefore, concealed
so much as she could of her own opinion, and received Beecher as
cordially as she was able.

"Ah, Paul, my boy, how goes it? Miss Kellett, how d'ye do?" said
Beecher, with that easy air and pleasant smil