something corrupt and unpurgeable in them) wrote him one bluff,
contemptuous letter, in a witty strain,--for he was a bit of a
humourist,--disowned his connection, and very shortly afterwards died,
and left all his fortune to the very Mr. Vavasour who was at law with
Mordaunt, and for whom he had always openly expressed the strongest
personal dislike: spite to one relation is a marvellous tie to
another. Meanwhile the lawsuit went on less slowly than lawsuits
usually do, and the final decision was very speedily to be given.

We said the autumn and the winter were gone; and it was in one of
those latter days in March, when, like a hoyden girl subsiding into
dawning womanhood, the rude weather mellows into a softer and tenderer
month, that, by the side of a stream, overshadowed by many a brake and
tree, sat two persons.

"I know not, dearest Algernon," said one, who was a female, "if this
is not almost the sweetest month in the year, because it is the month
of Hope."

"Ay, Isabel; and they did it wrong who called it harsh, and dedicated
it to Mars. I exult even in the fresh winds which hardier frames than
mine shrink from, and I love feeling their wild breath fan my cheek as
I ride against it. I remember," continued Algernon, musingly, "that
on this very day three years ago, I was travelling through Germany,
alone and on horseback, and I paused, not far from Ens, on the banks
of the Danube; the waters of the river were disturbed and fierce, and
the winds came loud and angry against my face, dashing the spray of
the waves upon me, and filling my spirit with a buoyant and glad
delight; and at that time I had been indulging old dreams of poetry,
and had laid my philosophy aside; and, in the inspiration of the