WHO should light upon Cleve that evening as he walked homeward but our friend Tom Sedley, who was struck by the anxious pallor and melancholy of his face.

Good-natured Sedley took his arm, and said he, as they walked on together —

“Why don’t you smile on your luck, Cleve?”

“How do you know what my luck is?”

“All the world knows that pretty well.”

“All the world knows everything but its own business.”

“Well, people do say that your uncle has lately got the oldest peerage — one of them — in England, and an estate of thirty-seven thousand a year, for one thing, and that you are heir-presumptive to these trifles.”

“And that heirs-presumptive often get nothing but their heads in their hands.”

“No, you’ll not come Saint Denis nor any other martyr over us, my dear boy; we know very well how you stand in that quarter.”

“It’s pleasant to have one’s domestic relations so happily arranged by such very competent persons. I’m much obliged to all the world for the parental interest it takes in my private concerns.”

“And it also strikes some people that a perfectly safe seat in the House of Commons is not to be had for nothing by every fellow who wishes it.”

“But suppose I don’t wish it.”

“Oh! we may suppose anything.”

Tom Sedley laughed as he said this, and Cleve looked at him sharply, but saw no uncomfortable meaning in his face.

“There is no good in talking of what one has not tried,” said he. “If you had to go down to that tiresome House of Commons every time it sits; and had an uncle like mine to take you to task every time you missed a division — you’d soon be as tired of it as I am.”

“I see, my dear fellow, you are bowed down under a load of good luck.” They were at the door of Tom Sedley’s lodgings by this time, and opening it, he continued, “I’ve something in my room to show you; just run up with me for a minute, and you’ll say I’m a conjuror.”

Cleve, not to be got into good spirits that evening, followed him upstairs, thinking of something else.

“I’ve got a key to your melancholy, Cleve,” said he, leading the way into his drawing-room. “Look there,” and he pointed to a clever copy in crayons of the famous Beatrice Cenci, which he had hung over his chimney-piece.

Tom Sedley laughed, looking in Cleve’s eyes. A slight flush had suddenly tinged his visitor’s face, as he saw the portrait. But he did not seem to enjoy the joke, on the contrary, he looked a little embarrassed and angry. “That’s Guido’s portrait — well, what about it?” he asked, rather surlily.

“Yes, of course; but who is it like?”

“Very few, I dare say, for it is very pretty; and except on canvas, there is hardly such a thing as a pretty girl to be seen. Is that all? for the life of me, I can’t see where the conjuring lies.”

“Not in the picture, but the likeness; don’t you see it?”

“No” said Cleve. “I must go; are you coming?”

“Not see it!” said Tom. “Why if it were painted for her, it could not be more like. Why, it’s the Flower of Cardyllian, the Star of Malory. It is your Miss Fanshawe —my Margaret —our Miss Margaret Fanshawe. I’m making the fairest division I can, you see; and I would not be without it for all the world.”

“She would be very much gratified if she heard it. It is so flattering to a young lady to have a fellow buy a coloured lithograph, and call it by her name, and crack jokes and spout mock heroics over it. It is the modern way of celebrating a lady’s name. Don’t you seriously think, Sedley, it would be better to smash it with a poker, and throw it into the fire, than go on taking such liberties with any young lady’s name?”

“Upon my honour, Cleve, you mistake me; you do me great injustice. You used to laugh at me, you know, when I’m quite sure, thinking over it now, you were awfully gone about her yourself. I never told any one but you why I bought that picture; it isn’t a lithograph, but painted, or drawn, or whatever they call it, with chalks, and it cost five guineas; and no one but you ever heard me mention Miss Fanshawe’s name, except the people at Cardyllian, and then only as I might mention any other, and always with respect.”

“What does it signify?” interrupted Cleve, in the middle of a forced yawn. “I’m tired today, and cross — don’t you see; and man delights not me, nor woman neither. So, if you’re coming, come, for I must go.”

“And, really, Cleve, the Cardyllian people do say (I’ve had letters) that you were awfully in love with her yourself, and always haunting those woods of Malory while she was there, and went away immediately she left, and have never been seen in Cardyllian since.”

“Those Cretans were always liars, Tom Sedley. That comes direct from the club. I can fancy old Shrapnell in the light of the bow-window, composing his farrago of dreams, and lies, and chuckling and cackling over it.”

“Well, I don’t say that Shrapnell had anything to do with it; but I did hear at first they thought you were gone about little Agnes Etherage.”

“Oh! they found that out — did they?” said Cleve. “But you know those people — I mean the Cardyllian people — as well, or better than I, and really, as a kindness to me, and to save me the trouble of endless explanations to my uncle, I would be so much obliged if you would not repeat their follies — unless, of course, you happen to believe them.”

Cleve did not look more cheerful as he drove away in a cab which he took to get rid of his friend Tom Sedley. It was mortifying to find how vain were his clever stratagems, and how the rustic chapmen of that Welsh village and their wives had penetrated his diplomacy. He thought he had killed the rumours about Malory, and yet that grain of mustard seed had grown while his eye was off it, with a gigantic luxuriance, and now was large enough to form a feature in the landscape, and quite visible from the windows of Ware — if his uncle should happen to visit that mansion — overtopping the roofs and chimneys of Cardyllian. His uncle meditated an early visit to Cardyllian, and a short stay at Ware, before the painters and gilders got possession of the house; a sort of ovation in demi-toilette, grand and friendly, and a foretaste of the splendours that were coming. Cleve did hope that those beasts would be quiet while Lord Verney was (as he in his grand manner termed it) “among them.” He knew the danger of a vague suspicion seizing on his mind, how fast it clung, how it fermented like yeast, fantastic and obstinate as a foolish woman’s jealousy — and as men sometimes will, he even magnified this danger. Altogether, Cleve was not causelessly anxious and alarmed. He had in the dark to navigate a channel which even in broad daylight tasked a good steersman.

When Cleve reached Verney House it was eight o’clock. Lord Verney had ordered his brougham at half-past, and was going down to the House; he had something to say on Lord Frompington’s bill. It was not very new, nor very deep, nor very much; but he had been close at it for the last three weeks. He had amused many gentlemen — and sometimes even ladies — at many dinner parties, with a very exact recital of his views. I cannot say that they were exactly his, for they were culled, perhaps unconsciously, from a variety of magazine articles and pamphlets, which happened to take Lord Verney’s view of the question.

It is not given to any mortal to have his heart’s desire in everything. Lord Verney had a great deal of this world’s good things — wealth, family, rank. But he chose to aim at official station, and here his stars denied him.

Some people thought him a goose, and some only a bore. He was, as we know, pompous, conceited, obstinate, also weak and dry. His grandfather had been a cabinet minister, respectable and silent; and was not he wiser, brighter, and more learned than his grandfather? “Why on earth should not he?” His influence commanded two boroughs, and virtually two counties. The minister, therefore, treated him with distinction; and spoke of him confidentially as horribly foolish, impracticable, and at times positively impertinent.

Lord Verney was subject to small pets and huffs, and sometimes was affronted with the Premier for four or five weeks together, although the fact escaped his notice. And when the viscount relented, he would make him a visit to quiet his mind, and show him that friendly relations were reestablished; and the minister would say, “Here comes that d —— d Verney; I suppose I must give him half-an-hour!” and when the peer departed, thinking he had made the minister happy, the minister was seriously debating whether Lord Verney’s boroughs were worth the price of Lord Verney’s society.

His lordship was now in that sacred apartment, his library; where not even Cleve had ............