a bachelor?"

DARRELL.--"Guide my choice. Pilot me to the haven."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Accepted! But you must remount a suitable
establishment; reopen your way to the great world, and penetrate those
sacred recesses where awaiting spinsters weave the fatal web. Leave all
to me. Let Mills (I see you have him still) call on me to-morrow about
your menage. You will give dinners, of course?"

DARRELL.--"Oh, of course; must I dine at them myself?"

Morley laughed softly, and took up his hat.

"So soon!" cried Darrell. "If I fatigue you already, what chance shall I
have with new friends?"

"So soon! it is past eleven. And it is you who must be fatigued."

"No such good luck; were I fatigued, I might hope to sleep. I will walk
back with you. Leave me not alone in this room,--alone in the jaws of a
fish; swallowed up by a creature whose blood is cold."

"You have something still to say to me," said Alban, when they were in
the open air: "I detect it in your manner; what is it?"

"I know not. But you have told me no news; these streets are grown
strange to me. Who live now in yonder houses? once the dwellers were
my friends."