After Ranelagh, and pursuant to Madame Bernstein's advice, George returned to her ladyship's house, whilst Harry showed himself at the club, where gentlemen were accustomed to assemble at night to sup, and then to gamble. No one, of course, alluded to Mr. Warrington's little temporary absence, and Mr. Ruff, his exlandlord, waited upon him with the utmost gravity and civility, and as if there had never been any difference between them. Mr. Warrington had caused his trunks and habiliments to be conveyed away from Bond Street in the morning, and he and his brother were now established in apartments elsewhere.

But when the supper was done, and the gentlemen as usual were about to seek the macco-table upstairs, Harry said he was not going to play any more. He had burned his fingers already, and could afford no more extravagance.

"Why," says Mr. Morris, in a rather flippant manner, "you must have won more than you have lost, Mr. Warrington, after all said and done."

"And of course I don't know my own business as well as you do, Mr. Morris," says Harry, sternly, who had not forgotten the other's behaviour on hearing of his arrest; "but I have another reason. A few months or days ago, I was heir to a great estate, and could afford to lose a little money. Now, thank God, I am heir to nothing." And he looked round, blushing not a little, to the knot of gentlemen, his gaming associates, who were lounging at the tables or gathered round the fire.

"How do you mean, Mr. Warrington ?" cries my Lord March. "Have you lost Virginia, too? Who has won it? I always had a fancy to play you myself for that stake."

"And grow an improved breed of slaves in the colony," says another.

"The right owner has won it. You heard me tell of my twin elder brother?"

"Who was killed in that affair of Braddock's two years ago? Yes. Gracious goodness, my dear sir, I hope in heaven he has not come to life again?"

"He arrived in London two days since. He has been a prisoner in a French fort for eighteen months; he only escaped a few months ago, and left our house in Virginia very soon after his release."

"You haven't had time to order mourning, I suppose, Mr. War

rington?" asks Mr. Selwyn very good-naturedly, and simple Harry hardly knew the meaning of his joke until his brother interpreted it to him.

"Hang me, if I don't believe the fellow is absolutely glad of the re-appearance of his confounded brother!" cries my Lord March, as they continued to talk of the matter when the young Virginian had taken his leave.

"These savages practise the simple virtues of affection—they are barely civilized in America yet," yawns Selwyn.

"They love their kindred, and they scalp their enemies," simpers Mr. Walpole. "It's not Christian, but natural. Shouldn't you like to be present at a scalping-match, George, and see a fellow skinned alive ?"

"A man's elder brother is his natural enemy," says Mr. Selwyn, placidly ranging his money and counters before him.

"Torture is like broiled bones and pepper. You wouldn't relish simple hanging afterwards, George!" continues Horry.

"I'm hanged if there's any man in England who would like to see his elder brother alive," says my lord.

"No, nor his father either, my lord!" cries Jack Morris.

"First time I ever knew you had one, Jack. Give me counters for five hundred."

"I say, 'tis all mighty fine about dead brothers coming to life again," continues Jack. "Who is to know that it wasn't a scheme arranged between these two fellows? Here comes a young fellow who calls himself the Fortunate Youth, who says he is a Virginian Prince and the deuce knows what, and who gets into our society"

A great laugh ensues at Jack's phrase of "our society."

"Who is to know that it wasn't a cross?" Jack continues. "The young one is to come first. He is to marry an heiress, and, when he has got her, up is to rise the elder brother! When did this elder brother show? Why, when the younger's scheme was blown, and all was up with him! Who shall tell me that the fellow hasn't been living in Seven Dials, or in a cellar dining off tripe and cowheel until my younger gentleman was disposed of? Dammy, as gentlemen, I think we ought to take notice of it: and that this Mr. Warrington has been taking a most outrageous liberty with the whole club."

"Who put him up? It was March, I think, put him up?" asks a bystander.

"Yes. But my lord thought he was putting up a very different person. Didn't you, March?"

"Hold your confounded tongue, and mind your game!" says the nobleman addressed: but Jack Morris's opinion found not a few supporters in the world. Many persons agreed that it was most indecorous of Mr. Harry Warrington to have ever believed in his brother's death; that there was something suspicious about the young man's first appearance and subsequent actions, and, in fine, that regarding these foreigners, adventurers, and the like, we ought to be especially cautious.

Though he was out of prison and difficulty; though he had his aunt's liberal donation of money in his pocket; though his dearest brother was restored to him, whose return to life Harry never once thought of deploring, as his friends at White's supposed he would do; though Maria had shown herself in such a favourable light by her behaviour during his misfortune: yet Harry, when alone, felt himself not particularly cheerful, and smoked his pipe of Virginia with a troubled mind. It was not that he was deposed from his principality: the loss of it never once vexed him; he knew that his brother would share with him as he would have done with his brother; but after all those struggles and doubts in his own mind, to find himself poor, and yet irrevocably bound to his elderly cousin! Yes, she was elderly, there was no doubt about it. When she came to that horrible den in Cursitor Street and the tears washed her rouge off, why, she looked as old as his mother! her face was all wrinkled and yellow, and as he thought of her he felt just such a qualm as he had when she was taken ill that day in the coach on their road to Tunbridge. What would his mother say when he brought her home, and, Lord, what battles there would be between them! He would go and live on one of the plantations — the farther from home the better-and have a few negroes, and farm as best he might, and hunt a good deal; but at Castlewood or in her own home, such as he could make it for her, what a life for poor Maria, who had been used to go to Court and to cards and balls and assemblies every night! If he could be but the overseer of the estates-oh, he would be an honest factor, and try and make up for his useless life and extravagance in these past days! Five thousand

pounds, all his patrimony and the accumulations of his long minority squandered in six months! He a beggar, except for dear George's kindness, with nothing in life left to him but an old wife: a pretty beggar, dressed out in velvet and silver lace forsooth-the poor lad was arrayed in his best clothes-a pretty figure he had made in Europe, and a nice end he was come to! With all his fine friends at White's and Newmarket, with all his extravagance, had he been happy a single day since he had been in Europe? Yes, three days, four days, yesterday evening, when he had been with dear dear Mrs. Lambert, and those affectionate kind girls, and that brave good Colonel. And the Colonel was right when he rebuked him for his spendthrift follies, and he had been a brute to be angry as he had been, and God bless them all for their generous exertions in his behalf! Such were the thoughts which Harry put into his pipe, and he smoked them whilst he waited his brother's return from Madame Bernstein.

CHAPTER VI.

DURING WHICH HARRY SITS SMOKING HIS PIPE AT HOME.

HE maternal grandfather of our Virginians, the Colonel Esmond of whom frequent mention has been made, and who had quitted England to reside in the New World, had devoted some portion of his long American leisure to the composition of the memoirs of his early life. In these volumes, Madame de Bernstein (Mrs. Beatrice Esmond was her name as a spinster) played a very considerable part; and as George had read his grandfather's manuscript many times over, he had learned to know his kinswoman long before he saw her, to know, at least, the lady, young, beautiful, and wilful, of half a century since, with whom he now became acquainted in the decline of her days. When cheeks are faded, and eyes are dim, is it sad or pleasant, I wonder, for the woman who is a beauty no more, to recall the period of her bloom? When the heart is withered, do the old love to remember how it once was fresh and beat with warm emotions? When the spirits are languid and weary, do we like to think how bright they were in other days, the hope how buoyant, the sympathies how ready, the enjoyment of life how keen and eager? So they fall,-the buds of prime, the roses of beauty, the florid harvests of summer,-fall and wither, and the naked branches shiver in the winter.

"And that was a beauty once!" thinks George Warrington, as his aunt, in her rouge and diamonds, comes in from her rout, "and that ruin was a splendid palace. Crowds of lovers have sighed before those decrepit feet, and been bewildered by the brightness of those