thousand. We map her out a course of permissible follies, and she plays
to lose the thousand by degrees, with as telling an effect upon a
connubial conscience as we can produce.'

'A thousand,' said the duke, 'will be cheap indeed. I think now I have
had a description of this fair Chloe, and from an enthusiast; a brune?
elegantly mannered and of a good landed family; though she has thought
proper to conceal her name. And that will be our difficulty, cousin
Beamish.'

'She was, under my dominion, Miss Martinsward,' Mr. Beamish pursued.
'She came here very young, and at once her suitors were legion. In the
way of women, she chose the worst among them; and for the fellow Caseldy
she sacrificed the fortune she had inherited of a maternal uncle. To
release him from prison, she paid all his debts; a mountain of bills,
with the lawyers piled above--Pelion upon Ossa, to quote our poets. In
fact, obeying the dictates of a soul steeped in generosity, she committed
the indiscretion to strip herself, scandalizing propriety. This was
immediately on her coming of age; and it was the death-blow to her
relations with her family. Since then, honoured even by rakes, she has
lived impoverished at the Wells. I dubbed her Chloe, and man or woman
disrespectful to Chloe packs. From being the victim of her generous
disposition, I could not save her; I can protect her from the shafts of
malice.'

'She has no passion for play?' inquired the duke.

'She nourishes a passion for the man for whom she bled, to the exclusion
of the other passions. She lives, and I believe I may say that it is the
motive of her rising and dressing daily, in expectation of his advent.'