dingy, and needs a great deal of brushing and scouring. I shall see you
in town very soon. By the way, has the claret I ordered from the Dublin
house arrived yet? It is consigned to you, and goes by the 'Lizard'; pay
the freightage, and get Edwards to pack it; ten dozen or so may as well
go down to Wynston, and send other wines in proportion. I leave details
to you...."

Some further directions upon other subjects followed; and having
subscribed the dispatch, and addressed it to the gentlemanlike scoundrel
who filled the onerous office of factotum to this profligate and
exacting man of the world, Sir Wynston Berkley rang his bell, and gave
the two letters into the hand of his man, with special directions to
carry them himself in person, to the post office in the neighboring
village, early next morning. These little matters completed, Sir Wynston
stirred his fire, leaned back in his easy chair, and smiled blandly over
the sunny prospect of his imaginary triumphs.

It here becomes necessary to describe, in a few words, some of the local
relations of Sir Wynston's apartments. The bedchamber which he occupied
opened from the long passage of which we have already spoken--and there
were two other smaller apartments opening from it in train. In the
further of these, which was entered from a lobby, communicating by a back
stair with the kitchen and servants' apartments, lay Sir Wynston's valet,
and the intermediate chamber was fitted up as a dressing room for the
baronet himself. These circumstances it is necessary to mention, that
what follows may be clearly intelligible.

While the baronet was penning these records of vicious schemes--dire
waste of wealth and time--irrevocable time!--Marston paced his study in a
very different frame of mind. There were a gloom and disorder in the room