ing, should it ever come in his way to form an attachment
with a wealthy woman. He knew how dangerous were the charms of such a
life as this to a man growing old among the flesh-pots, without any
one to depend upon him. He had seen what becomes of the man who is
always dining out at sixty. But he might avoid that. "Doan't thou
marry for munny, but goa where munny is." And then there was that
other outlook, the scene of which was laid somewhere north of Oxford
Street, and the glory of which consisted in Lucy's smile, and Lucy's
hand, and Lucy's kiss, as he returned home weary from his work.

There are many men, and some women, who pass their lives without
knowing what it is to be or to have been in love. They not improbably
marry,--the men do, at least,--and make good average husbands. Their
wives are useful to them, and they learn to feel that a woman, being
a wife, is entitled to all the respect, protection, and honour which
a man can give, or procure for her. Such men, no doubt, often live
honest lives, are good Christians, and depart hence with hopes as
justifiable as though they had loved as well as Romeo. But yet, as
men, they have lacked a something, the want of which has made them
small and poor and dry. It has never been felt by such a one that
there would be triumph in giving away everything belonging to him
for one little whispered, yielding word, in which there should be
acknowledgment that he had succeeded in making himself master of a
human heart. And there are other men,--very many men,--who have felt
this love, and have resisted it, feeling it to be unfit that Love
should be Lord of all. Frank Greystock had told himself, a score
of times, that it would be unbecoming in him to allow a passion to
obtain such mastery of him as to interfere with his ambition. Could
it be right that he who, as a young man, had already done so much,
who might possibly have before him so high and great a career, should
miss that, because he could not resist a feeling which a little chit
of a girl had created in his bosom,--a girl without money, without
position, without even beauty; a girl as to whom, were he to marry
her, the world would say, "Oh, heaven!--there has Frank Greystock
gone and married a little governess out of old Lady Fawn's nursery!"
And yet he loved her with all his heart, and to-day he had told her
of his love. What should he do next?

The complicated legal case received neither much ravelling nor
unravellin