Sir M. Corby says, he is a man whose hands betray him--or did to Sir M.;
expects to see him one day on the wrong side of the criminal bar. He
struck me as not being worse than absurd. He was, in any case, an unfit
companion, and our C. would help to rescue the Eccentric from such
complicating associates. I see worlds of good she may do. Happily, he
is no slave of the vice of gambling; so she would not suffer that
anxiety. I wish it could be subjoined, that he has no malicious pleasure
in misleading others. Livia is inconsolable over her pet, young Lord
Cressett, whom he yesterday induced to "try his luck"--with the result.
We leave, if bills are paid, in two days. Captain Abrane and Mr. Potts
left this afternoon; just enough to carry them home. Papa and your
blissful sister out driving. Riette within her four walls and signing
herself,

'THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.'




CHAPTER XIII

AN IRRUPTION. OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION

'It is a dark land,' Carinthia said, on seeing our Island's lowered
clouds in swift motion, without a break of their folds, above the sheer
white cliffs.

--She said it, we know. That poor child Carinthia Jane, when first she
beheld Old England's shores, tossing in the packet-boat on a wild Channel
sea, did say it and think it, for it is in the family that she did; and