volous adventures, Ferrers
was charming. But in sadness, or in the moments of deep feeling, Ferrers
was one whom you would wish out of the way.

"You are sullen to-eight, _mon cher_," said Lumley, yawning; "I suppose
you want to go to bed--some persons are so ill-bred, so selfish, they
never think of their friends. Nobody asks me what I won at _ecarte_.
Don't be late to-morrow--I hate breakfasting alone, and I am never later
than a quarter before nine--I hate egotistical, ill-mannered people.
Good night."

With this, Ferrers sought his own room; there, as he slowly undressed,
he thus soliloquised: "I think I have put this man to all the use I can
make of him. We don't pull well together any longer; perhaps I myself
am a little tired of this sort of life. That is not right. I shall grow
ambitious by and by; but I think it a bad calculation not to make the
most of youth. At four or five-and-thirty it will be time enough to
consider what one ought to be at fifty."

CHAPTER IV.

"Most dangerous
Is that temptation that does goad us on
To sin in loving virtue."--_Measure for Measure_.

"SEE her to-morrow!--that morrow is come!" thought Maltravers, as he
rose the next day from a sleepless couch. Ere yet he had obeyed the
impatient summons of Ferrers, who had thrice sent to say that "_he_
never kept people waiting," his servant entered with a packet from
England, that had just arrived by one of those rare couriers who
sometimes honour that Naples, which _might_ be so lucrative a mart
to English commerce, if Neapolitan kings cared for trade, or English
senators for "foreign politics." Letters from stewards and bankers were
soon got through; and Maltravers reserved for the last an epistle from
Cleveland. There was much in it that touched him home. After some dry
details about the property to which Maltravers had now succeeded, and
some trifling comments upon trifling remarks in Ernest's former letters,
Cleveland went on thus:

"I confess, my dear Ernest, that I long to welcome you back to England.
You have been abroad long enough to see other countries; do not stay
long enough to prefer them to your own. You are at Naples, too--I
tremble for you. I know well that delicious, dreaming, holiday-life of
Italy, so sweet to men of learning and imagination--so sweet, too, to
youth--so sweet to pleasure! But, Ernest, do you not feel already how it
enervates?--how the luxurious _far niente_ unfits us for grave exertio