gentleman; but he was no longer handsome or interesting. An expression
of careless good-humor, in spite of the deep mourning he wore for the
recent death of his wife, pervaded his countenance; and he seemed
determined to repay Fortune for the many ill turns he had received from
her in his youth, by enjoying, to their full extent, the good things
that she had latterly showered upon him.

He had been a kind manageable husband to a woman whom he had married
more for convenience than affection; and was a fatally indulgent father
to the only son, the sole survivor of a large family that he had
consigned to the tomb during the engaging period of infancy. Godfrey, a
beautiful little boy of two years old, was his youngest and his best
beloved, on whom he lavished the concentrated affections of his warm and
generous heart.

Since his marriage with the rich and beautiful Miss Maitland, he had
scarcely given Elinor Wildegrave a second thought. He had loved her
passionately, as the portionless orphan of the unfortunate Captain
Wildegrave; but he could not regard with affection or esteem the wife of
the rich Mark Hurdlestone--the man from whom he had received so many
injuries. How she could have condescended to share his splendid misery,
was a question which filled his mind with too many painful and
disgusting images to answer. When he received his brother's hasty
message, entreating him to come and make up their old quarrel before he
died, he obeyed the extraordinary summons with his usual kindness of
heart, without reflecting on the pain that such a meeting might
occasion, when he beheld again the object of his early affections as the
wife of his unnatural brother.

When he crossed the well-known threshold, and his shadow once more