and I will tell you all about it."

"Wait a moment, my friend, and let me get some breakfast," he replied.

"Pooh!" said Horace, "we can have breakfast at Galpin's after I have
conversed with you at my room; or," he continued, "I will order a
breakfast and champagne to be brought up to my room."

"As you like," said the other, taking a couple of cigars from his
pocket and offering one to his companion.

After lighting their cigars, the two men left the hotel, and
purchasing the New York _Herald_ and _News_ from the news-dealer
below, proceeded to the St. Louis Hotel, where Horace ordered a
breakfast and champagne for himself and guest.

Throwing himself on one of the richly-covered couches that ornamented
the apartment, Charles Bell--for that was the name of the
gentleman--requested his friend to inform him who the lady was that he
escorted to church.

"Well, my dear friend," said Horace, "as you appear so desirous to
know I will tell you. I met that lady some seven years ago at Saratoga
Springs. If she is now beautiful she was ten times so then, and I
endeavored to gain her affections. She was, however, engaged to
another young man of this city, and on my offering her my hand in
marriage, declined it on that ground. I followed her here with the
intention of supplanting her lover in her affections, but it was of no
avail; they were married, and the only satisfaction I could find was
to ruin her father, which I did, and he died shortly after without a
dollar to his name."

"So she is married?" interrupted his companion.

"Yes, and has two children," replied Horace.

"Where is her husband?"

"He left for Virginia some time ago, where I sincerely trust he will
get a bullet through his heart," was the very charitable rejoinder.

"What! do you desire to marry his widow?" asked his friend.

"No, indeed," he replied; "but you see they are not in very good
circumstances, and if he were once dead she would be compelled to work
for a living, as they have no relatives in this State, and only a few
in Baltimore. To gain my object, I should pretend that I desired to
befriend her--send the two children to some nurse, and then have her
all to myself. This," continued the villain, "is the object with which
I have called upon her"--

"And paid a visit to church for the first time in your life," said
Bell, laughing; "but," he resumed, "it is not necessary for you to
wish the husband dead--why not proceed to work at once?"