istent pursuit of all kinds of debauchery. He was calculating
even in his pleasures, and, they say, kept a regular ledger and daybook
of the moneys disbursed in his vices.

When the drawings came to him, he glanced at them for a moment, and
then threw them down with a little contemptuous laugh.

"I am sorry to spoil your romance, Livingstone, but I have a pretty good
right to recognize the artist's touch. You know her, some of you; it is
Fanny Challoner."

"What! the girl you sent away about three weeks ago?" some one asked.
"Poor thing! she was not sorry, I should think. She had a hard time of
it before she left you."

"Precisely," Levinge replied. "Her modesty and high moral principles,
which I never could quite subdue, gave a zest to the thing at first. You
understand?--a sort of caviare flavor. But at last it bored me horribly.
I really believe she had a conscience. Can you conceive any thing so out
of place? I did offer her a little money when she went away, but she
would not take any, and said she would try to maintain herself honestly.
Bah! I defy her. She was a governess, you know, when I took her first,
so she is trying some of the old accomplishments. I wish you joy of your
_protegee_, Livingstone; and as for her address, if any of you want it,
I will give it you to-morrow."

Before Guy could reply Mohun broke in. While Levinge had been speaking,
the colonel's face had grown very dark and threatening.

"Did her father live near Walmer? And was he a half-pay officer?"

"Quite correct," was the answer. "He died about eighteen months before I
met Fanny. You knew him, perhaps? How interesting! Excuse my emotion."

"I did know him," Ralph said. "He was a gentleman, and well born.
Perhaps that was the reason you could not get on long with his
daughter?"

It is a popular error that a bully is always a coward. Certainly Horace
was an exception to the rule, if such exists. Nothing could be more
calmly insolent than his tone as he answered deliberately,

"How admirable to find Colonel Mohun in the character of the Censor! A
Clodius come to judgment. I should hardly have expected it, from his
past life, either."

The reply came from the depths of Ralph's chest, very distinct, but with
a strange effect of distance and echo, as if the words had been spoken
under the vault of some vast dome.

"You will leave my past life alone, if you are wise. I don't preach
against immorality; it is only brutality that I fin