the distresses increasing; and nothing but a circumstance which Mordaunt
did not then understand prevented the final sale of an estate already
little better than a pompons incumbrance.

It was therefore with the half painful, half pleasurable sensation with
which we avoid contemplating a ruin we cannot prevent that Mordaunt
set out upon that Continental tour deemed then so necessary a part of
education. His father, on taking leave of him, seemed deeply affected.
"Go, my son," said he, "may God bless you, and not punish me too
severely. I have wronged you deeply, and I cannot bear to look upon your
face."

To these words Algernon attached a general, but they cloaked a peculiar,
meaning: in three years, he returned to England; his father had been
dead some months, and the signification of his parting address was
already deciphered,--but of this hereafter.

In his travels Mordaunt encountered an Englishman whose name I will not
yet mention: a person of great reputed wealth; a merchant, yet a man
of pleasure; a voluptuary in life, yet a saint in reputation; or, to
abstain from the antithetical analysis of a character which will not
be corporeally presented to the reader till our tale is considerably
advanced, one who drew from nature a singular combination of shrewd
but false conclusions, and a peculiar philosophy, destined hereafter to
contrast the colours and prove the practical utility of that which was
espoused by Mordaunt.

There can be no education in which the lessons of the world do not form
a share. Experience, in expanding Algernon's powers, had ripened his
virtues. Nor had the years which had converted knowledge into wisdom
failed in imparting polish to refinement. His person had acquired a
greater grace, and his manners an easier dignity than before. His noble
and generous mind had worked its impress upon his features and his mien;
and those who could overcome the first coldness and shrinking hauteur of
his address found it required no minute examination to discover the real
expression of the eloquent eye and the kindling lip.

He had not been long returned before he found two enemies to his
tranquillity,--the one was love, the other appeared in the more
formidable guise of a claimant to his estate. Before Algernon was aware
of the nature of the latter he went to consult with his lawyer.

"If the claim be just, I shall not, of course, proceed to law," said
Mordaunt.

"But without the estate, sir, you hav