large; to find himself free, for a time, of the dead weight of debt, which seemed to make breathing difficult in Whitford; for, although by plodding characters the relief might not have been felt until the debts were paid, Algernon Errington's spirit was of a sort that rose buoyant as ever, directly the external pressure was removed. It was delightful to be reinstated in the enjoyment of his reputation as a charming fellow—much fallen into oblivion at Whitford. And perhaps it was pleasantest of all to feel strengthened in the assurance that he still was a charming fellow, with capacities for winning admiration and making a brilliant figure, quite uninjured (although they had been temporarily eclipsed) by all the cloud of troubles which had gathered around him.

So he had, for a moment, thought of fairly running away from wife, and duns, and dangers of official severities. But it was but a brief unsubstantial vision that flashed for an instant and was gone. Algernon was too clear-sighted not to perceive that the course was inconvenient—nay, to one of his temperament, impracticable. People who started off to live on their wits in a foreign country ought to be armed with a coarser indifference to material comforts than he was gifted with. Alternations of ortolans and champagne, with bread and onions, would be—even supposing one could be sure of the ortolans, which Algernon knew he could not—entirely repugnant to his temperament. He had no such strain of adventurousness as would have given a pleasant glow of excitement to the endurance of privation under any circumstances whatever. Professed Bohemians might talk as they pleased about kicking over traces, and getting rid of trammels, and so forth; but, for his part, he had never felt his spirit in the least oppressed by velvet hangings, gilded furniture, or French cookery! Whereas to be obliged to wear shabby gloves would have been a kind of "trammel" he would strongly have objected to. In a word, he desired to be luxuriously comfortable always. And he consistently (albeit, perhaps, mistakenly, for the cleverest of us are liable to error) endeavoured to be so.

Therefore he did not ship himself aboard an emigrant vessel for the United States; nor did he even cross the Channel to Calais; but found himself in a corner of the mail-coach on the night after Jack Price's supper party, bowling along, not altogether unpleasantly, towards Whitford. He had not seen Lord Seely again. He had inquired for him at his house, and had been told that his lordship was worse; was confined to bed entirely; and that