that he is connected with a lady of doubtful repute, called Somerset,
and neither your beauty nor your virtue has prevailed to detach him
from that connection.

"If, on engaging himself to you, he had abandoned her, I should not
have said a word. But the truth is, he visits her constantly, and I
blush to say that when he leaves you this day it will be to spend the
afternoon at her house.

"I inclose you her address, and you can learn in ten minutes whether I
am a slanderer or, what I wish to be,

"A FRIEND OF INJURED INNOCENCE."


CHAPTER V.

SIR CHARLES was behind his time in Mayfair; but the lawyer and his
clerk had not arrived, and Miss Somerset was not visible.

She appeared, however, at last, in a superb silk dress, the broad
luster of which would have been beautiful, only the effect was broken
and frittered away by six rows of gimp and fringe. But why blame her?
This is a blunder in art as universal as it is amazing, when one
considers the amount of apparent thought her sex devotes to dress. They
might just as well score a fair plot of velvet turf with rows of box,
or tattoo a blooming and downy cheek.

She held out her hand, like a man, and talked to Sir Charles on
indifferent topics, till Mr. Oldfield arrived. She then retired into