n's way. It was a story to touch the heart, as none other ever
written of over all the earth was there a woman equalling his Nataly!

And their Nesta would have a dowry to make princesses envious:--she
would inherit... he ran up an arithmetical column, down to a line of
figures in addition, during three paces of his feet. Dartrey Fenellan
had said of little Nesta once, that she had a nature pure and sparkling
as mid-sea foam. Happy he who wins her! But she was one of the young
women who are easily pleased and hardly enthralled. Her father strained
his mind for the shape of the man to accomplish the feat. Whether she
had an ideal of a youth in her feminine head, was beyond his guessing.
She was not the damsel to weave a fairy waistcoat for the identical
prince, and try it upon all comers to discover him: as is done by
some; excuseably, if we would be just. Nesta was of the elect, for whom
excuses have not to be made. She would probably like a flute-player
best; because her father played the flute, and she loved him--laughably
a little maiden's reason! Her father laughed at her.

Along the street of Clubs, where a bruised fancy may see black balls
raining, the narrow way between ducal mansions offers prospect of the
sweep of greensward, all but touching up to the sunset to draw it to the
dance.

Formerly, in his very early youth, he clasped a dream of gaining way
to an alliance with one of these great surrounding houses; and he had
a passion for the acquisition of money as a means. And it has to be
confessed, he had sacrificed in youth a slice of his youth, to gain it
without labour--usually a costly purchase. It had ended disastrously:
or say, a running of the engine off the rails, and a speedy
re-establishment of traffic. Could it be a loss, that had led to the
winning of his Nataly? Can we really loathe the first of the steps when
the one in due sequence, cousin to it, is a blessedness? If we have been
righted to health by a medical draught, we are bound to be respectful to
our drug. And so we are, in spite of Nature's wry face and shiver at
a mention of what we went through during those days, those horrible
days:--hide them!

The smothering of them from sight set them sounding he had to listen.
Colney Durance accused him of entering into bonds with somebody's
grandmother for the simple sake of browsing on her thousands: a picture
of himself too abhorrent to Victor to permit of any sort of acceptance.
Consequently