dinner? Let me choose, you were always a bad caterer." As Ferrers thus
rattled on, Maltravers felt himself growing younger: old times and old
adventures crowded fast upon him; and the two friends spent a most
agreeable day together. It was only the next morning that Maltravers,
in thinking over the various conversations that had passed between them,
was forced reluctantly to acknowledge that the inert selfishness of
Lumley Ferrers seemed now to have hardened into a resolute and
systematic want of principle, which might, perhaps, make him a dangerous
and designing man, if urged by circumstances into action.



CHAPTER II.

"/Dauph./ Sir, I must speak to you. I have been long your
despised kinsman.

"/Morose./ Oh, what thou wilt, nephew."--EPICENE.

"Her silence is dowry eno'--exceedingly soft spoken; thrifty
of her speech, that spends but six words a day."--/Ibid./

THE coach dropped Mr. Ferrers at the gate of a villa about three miles
from town. The lodge-keeper charged himself with the carpet-bag, and
Ferrers strolled, with his hands behind him (it was his favourite mode
of disposing of them), through the beautiful and elaborate
pleasure-grounds.

"A very nice, snug little box (jointure-house, I suppose)! I would not
grudge that, I'm sure, if I had but the rest. But here, I suspect,