ne younger brother had been early left masters of
their fate and their several portions. The younger, Geoffrey,
testified a roving and dissipated turn. Bold, licentious, extravagant,
unprincipled,--his career soon outstripped the slender fortunes of
a cadet in the family of a country squire. He was early thrown into
difficulties, but, by some means or other they never seemed to overwhelm
him; an unexpected turn--a lucky adventure--presented itself at the very
moment when Fortune appeared the most utterly to have deserted him.

Among these more propitious fluctuations in the tide of affairs, was,
at about the age of forty, a sudden marriage with a young lady of what
might be termed (for Geoffrey Lester's rank of life, and the rational
expenses of that day) a very competent and respectable fortune.
Unhappily, however, the lady was neither handsome in feature nor gentle
in temper; and, after a few years of quarrel and contest, the faithless
husband, one bright morning, having collected in his proper person
whatever remained of their fortune, absconded from the conjugal hearth
without either warning or farewell. He left nothing to his wife but
his house, his debts, and his only child, a son. From that time to
the present little had been known, though much had been conjectured,
concerning the deserter. For the first few years they traced, however,
so far of his fate as to learn that he had been seen once in India;
and that previously he had been met in England by a relation, under the
disguise of assumed names: a proof that whatever his occupations, they
could scarcely be very respectable. But, of late, nothing whatsoever
relating to the wanderer had transpired. By some he was imagined dead;
by most he was forgotten. Those more immediately connected with him--his
brother in especial, cherished a secret belief, that wherever Geoffrey
Lester should chance to alight, the manner of alighting would (to use
the significant and homely metaphor) be always on his legs; and coupling
the wonted luck of the scapegrace with the fact of his having been seen
in India, Rowland, in his heart, not only hoped, but fully expected,
that the lost one would, some day or other, return home laden with
the spoils of the East, and eager to shower upon his relatives, in
recompense of long desertion,

"With richest hand... barbaric pearl and gold."

But we must return to the forsaken spouse.--Left in this abrupt
destitution and distress, Mrs. Lester h