us, however, felt inclined to seek our couches: tumblers were paraded, the kettle boiled, and down we sat to talk over the night's adventures, and arrange measures to meet any legal or honourable consequences that might attend piquet-playing by moonlight. Morning dawned before our conclave ended; and, from the shrewd and caustic remarks that during our tête-à-tête fell from my singular companion, I perceived he was one who had studied mankind deeply, and I longed to learn from his own lips, what I suspected would be a strange detail-his history.

CHAPTER XIX.

CONFESSIONS OF A CYNIC.

'Tis said that persons living on annuities
Are longer lived than others-God knows why,
Unless to plague the granters-yet so true it is,
That some, I really think, do never die;

Of any creditors, the worst a Jew it is,

And that's their mode of furnishing supply:
In my young days they lent me cash that way,
Which I found very troublesome to pay.

Don Juan.

Well, that's the prettiest shawl-as I'm alive! You'll give it me? Верро.

BREAKFAST ended, morning parade was over, and neither friendly nor hostile visiter appeared-none of the dramatis persona of last night honoured the barrack-yard with their presence the fiddler alone answered the call of duty; and it seemed that by general consent, the command of the garrison would devolve upon the descendant of Orpheus.

More than once, during our tête-à-tête, Aylmer supported his opinions by a reference to personal experience, and I pressed him to tell me his private history. He smiled.

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I believe, my dear Blake, I shall best point the moral I am preaching by doing so, and prove to you how easily young gentlemen can ruin themselves. I shall not be

tedious. I entered the world an orphan and at sixteen-my fortune a pair of colours and a few hundred pounds. I had a good constitution, animal spirits in abundance, and as much knowledge of the world as a certain Lothario of my acquaintance, who shall be nameless.

"My earlier military career is so closely connected with your father's history, that I shall merely tell you that I assisted in despoiling Miss M'Namara's supper, and in stuffing her chimney afterward. To me the consequences might have been ruinous; but your father saved my commission and sacrificed his own. I heard of his death in Jamaica, where we were soon after sent; and it is not for me to add how bitterly the untimely fate of my generous friend distressed me. "We continued in the West Indies for five years, broiling under a tropical sun, and tormented by a tyrannical colonel. Conceive my delight when, by the most unexpected freak of fortune, I found myself liberated from the thrall of an illtempered martinet, and owner of ten thousand pounds in stock, and fifteen hundred a-year in dirty acres. A relative, too distant for me to build on for anything beyond a mourning-ring, had pleased to register me his heir-and a man who would not have assisted me in purchasing a sword-knot, left me the scrapings-up of a long and miserly existence.

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I did not dally, as you may believe, in Jamaica. Directly Up-Park was abandoned; I threw myself into the first sugar-ship that sailed-courier-like,' reached the shores of Britain-exchanged into a light cavalry regiment, which in six months I left for the Blues.

"I was twenty-two that very day on which I mounted my first guard at St. James's. I was tolerably well-looking, pliable enough to adapt myself to the fripperies of fashion, with a round sum at Hammersley's, and an income sufficient for more than moderate enjoyment of the numerous pleasures which the most profligate capital in Europe offers to the youthful voluptuary. I had, or ought to have had, some knowledge of the world, for I entered on the theatre of life as early as yourself; and I should have known the value of money, having so long existed on the miserable pay of a lieutenant; yet, in three years, I dissipated a goodly inheritance, and was a ruined man at twenty-five!"

"And how, in this brief space," said I, interrupting him, "could you manage to wreck your fortunes so completely?" The cynic smiled bitterly.

"Nothing more easily effected, my boy; with the assistance of a noble earl, two or three lords, a baronet, half-adozen M. P.'s, a club, a hell, a woman.

"You must know, that among my fancies, I had determined, whenever it pleased me to contract matrimony, to select a high-born wife. I, the descendant of an ancient line,

could not contaminate my blood by a union with aught but some scion from a noble tree. Now, the gallant lord who commanded my troop was heir to one of the oldest marquisates in Britain: he condescended, from the moment I joined, to patronize me; gradually we became inseparable; and in due time were accounted the Pylades and Orestes of the Blues. Indeed, never was youthful friendship more warm and disinterested: he brought me everywhere; introduced me to his family; put me up in a club: his friends were mine; his tradesmen supplied me; I would not purchase a pointer without his consent; and, at last, did all but swear by him.

"He was, poor fellow! miserably embarrassed; but his distresses, when I discovered them, interested me for him the more. I had money unemployed at my bankers, and would I allow my kind and noble friend to be inconvenienced for a thousand? No, I offered him assistance-it was freely and liberally accepted; and in return, he taught me play, made arrangements for me with a figurante, allowed me a share in his turf speculations, and was to me more than a brother. Yet fortune frowned upon him constantly: his horses broke down--his run at cards was abominable;--but, hang the jade! she has been notorious always for treating men of merit scurvily.

แ

"My friend had a sister rather passée and proud as Lucifer. She was a fine woman, however; and her blood, Jack--her progenitors had ridden side by side with the Norman bastard, and scrawled their autographs to Magna Charta in the field of Runymede. What could I do but love her? and she smiled upon a suit which her brother avowedly encouraged. But, alas! there was an obstacle; her father was so lofty in his nobility, that nothing beneath an earl's coronet could be offered or entertained. Time however might do much: I was recommended patience, and of course submitted. But in private, the lady of my love was kind; she heard my vows, and told me I was not indifferent to her. We walked, and rode, and danced, and flirted, until our union was chronicled in the Morning Post as one of those to occur at the end of the season. But, alas! the season ended me.

It was very remarkable how much Lady Agnes deferred to my taste in articles of fancy and virtù. She scarcely visited a jeweller's without me; and I was as well known at Howel and James's as their own bookkeeper. Her allowance from her noble father I found out was very small; and

with an exemplary self-denial, she would have declined purchasing many a Cashmere shawl or recherché muff, had I not delicately contrived to pay for them, and force her to honour me by their acceptance. She loved bijouterie dearly; but the same high principle prevented her indulging expensive inclinations. But I rarely failed in discovering the object of her fancy, procured it directly, and laid it an offering on her shrine. And was I not well rewarded? When I placed the gem upon her finger, I pressed the beautiful hand of a peeress in her own right; and if the gift was unusually magnificent, her lips were not refused to mine, and I experienced the exquisite delight of kissing a descendant of the Conqueror! Never were lover's favours more graciously and gracefully acknowledged-never woman's gratitude warmer; although, indeed, we never played moonlight piquet-because, probably, Lady Agnes was too much an adept to waste time and instructions on a bungler.

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Meanwhile, my funds diminished fast; my account at Hammersley's was overdrawn; my rents anticipated by drafts upon my agent; and I was booked by every west-end tradesman, from the coach to the cane maker.

"This was an awkward discovery; but I was not inclined to sink a fallen star without a struggle. As yet I had never tried my hand at bill or bond, except to oblige my dear friend Lord whom I joined in securities for some thousands. The tribe of Israel were untouched-there was a mine in reserve, an El Dorado waiting for my acceptance. I mentioned to my noble companion that I was hard-up, and then indeed he proved his friendship. He introduced me to his own solicitor-none of your city scribes, your east-end pettifoggers--but a regular four-in-hander, who did the business of the Guards; in money matters liberal as a prince, and in delicate ones, close as a pill-box;' in short, as my noble friend averred, he was the soul of honour.'

I found La

"It was late that day when I dropped into Hanover-square, where the Marquis of- was domiciled. The lamps were lighted in the streets and morning visiting over. dy Agnes in the back drawing-room quite alone; she seemed unusually out of spirits, and I, as in duty bound, tenderly inquired the cause. She continued silent, sighed heavily, and I thought I saw a tear stealing down her cheek. I put my arm gently round her waist, and, oh, rapture! she leaned her head upon my bosom, and burst into a flood of tears. 'Agnes, my idolized Agnes! what is the matter? Speak to me--tell me what makes you so unhappy?'

Oh, Aylmer!' she murmured, pray don't ask it. foolish, very foolish, to permit my feelings to overpower me. But you, from whom I conceal nothing-no, I cannot go on. Don't ask it, dear, dear Aylmer!' and in the ardour of her entreaty, she turned her lips to mine, and so closely too, that they met by accident,

"All this, of course, required that I should tenderly and imperatively insist upon an explanation. At last, amidst sighs and sobs, the truth came out. Ebers had turned restive, insisted on a settlement of account, and positively refused Lady Agnes a box at the Opera, unless the subscription, a matter of some three hundred pounds, was promptly paid. "And has this paltry sum caused my Agnes a moment's pain ?" Tears were the only answer, and tears, Jack, you will find are always forerunners of a kissing-match. I held her unresisting to my heart; told her how eternally her candour had obliged me; whispered that I would be with her soon, and hurried off from Hanover-square to procure the money, even were I to rob a church, or take to the road, and cry, 'stand to a true man.'

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And where was money to be had? Where, but from the 'soul of honour,' the attorney. I flew to his house. Indoors he luckily was, but, most unluckily, out of cash entirely. He would, however, 'see about it immediately, and in a day or two'-' A day or two! Zounds! an hour was an age-the thing must be done instantly.' He thought a moment, put his hand across his forehead, rang the bell, called a coach, and though his dinner was ready, the kind man set off to make me happy.

"We traversed an endless extent of city, and reached at last a place eastward of all the world, denominated in 'Guides to London' St. Mary-axe, and known to antiquaries, Jews, Bow-street runners, and old clothesmen. There he presented me, after a private colloquy in the corner, to a small stout smooth-visaged gentleman, who, for my note at two months for five hundred pounds, favoured me with three hundred in bank-notes, four casks of dried cod, two ditto of train-oil, and two of turpentine,-- I forget the brands, but they were excellent. I inquired what the plague I was to do with fish and oil? But the soul of honour' at once declared, that Isaac must sell those valuables on my account; and three days afterward I received from Mr. Solomons, per solicitor, twentyseven pounds, thirteen shillings, and twopence, being the balance of account on stock-fish, train-oil, and turpentine VOL. I.-14.