Of all the places on which the autumnal moon, approaching her full like a comely matron, looks down, there are many far less picturesque and less enjoyable than that bit of Robertson-terrace, St. Leonards, which adjoins the narrow strip of beach communicating with the old town of Hastings proper. On this beach the moonbeams play.  
"Among the waste and lumber of the shore, Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn,"
 
casting grim and fantastic shadows, and bringing oddest objects into unwonted and undue prominence. Robertson-terrace--as hideous, architecturally considered, as are the majority of such marine asylums for the temporary reception of Londoners--stands back from the road, and has its stuccoed proportions somewhat softened by the trees and shrubs in the "Enclosure," as the denizens love to call it, a small oblong strip of something which ought to be green turf, but what, under the influence of promenading and croquet-playing, has become brown mud. In the moonlight on this lovely night in early autumn, some of the denizens yet linger in the Enclosure. Young people mostly, of both sexes, who walk in pairs, and speak in very low tones, and look at each other with very long immovable glances; young people who cannot imagine why people ever grow old, who cannot conceive that there can be any pleasure except in that one pastime in which they themselves are then employed--who cannot conceive, for instance, what enjoyment that old gentleman, who has been so long seated in the drawing-room balcony of No. 17, can find in life.
 
That old gentleman is Lord Sandilands, who, the London season over, has come down to St. Leonards for a little sea-air, and quiet and change. One reason for his selection of St. Leonards is that Miss Grace Lambert and Mrs. Bloxam are staying within a few miles' distance, at Hardriggs, Sir Giles Belwether's pretty place. Lord Sandilands had been invited to Hardriggs, also, but he disliked staying anywhere except with very intimate friends; and, moreover, he had come to that time of life when rest was absolutely essential to him, and he knew that under Sir Giles Belwether's ponderous hospitality he would simply be moving the venueof his London life without altering any of its details. Moreover, the old gentleman, by coming to St. Leopards, was carrying out a kindly scheme long since laid, of giving Miles Challoner occasional opportunities of seeing Miss Lambert. Miles was not invited to stay at Hardriggs; he did not even know Sir Giles Belwether; but he became Lord Sandilands' guest in the lodgings in Robertson-terrace, and, as such, he was taken over by his friend to Hardriggs, introduced to the host, and received with the greatest hospitality. Lord Sandilands has this advantage over the youthful promenaders in the "Enclosure," that while they cannot imagine what he is thinking of, he perfectly well divines the subject of their thoughts, and is allowing his own ideas to run in another vein of that special subject. He has just made Miles confess his love for Grace Lambert, and all the drawbacks and disadvantages of the position are opening rapidly before him.
 
"I might have expected it," said the old gentleman half-aloud; "I knew it was coming. I saw it growing day by day, and yet I never had the pluck to look the affair straight in the face--to make up my mind whether I'd tell him anything about Gertrude's parentage; and I don't know what to do now. Ah, here he is!--Well, Miles, had your smoke? Lovely night, eh?"
 
"A lovely night, indeed! No end of people out by the sea."
 
"You wouldn't mind a turn in that lime-walk at Hardriggs just now, Miles, eh? with--Kate Belwether, or someone else?"
 
"Rather the someone else, dear old friend. And so you weren't a bit astonished at what I told you to-day?"
 
"Astonished, my boy! I astonished? Why, where do you think my eyes have been? I declare you young fellows think that to you alone has been confided the appreciation of beauty and the art of love!"
 
"Anyone who imagines that must have ears, and hear not, so far as your lordship is concerned," said Miles, laughing. "Now, of John Borlase, commonly known as Baron Sandilands, the ladies whom he courted and the conquests which he made, are they not written in the Chronique Scandaleuseof the period?"
 
"Well, I don't know that. I'm of an old-fashioned school, which holds that no gentleman should so carry on his amourettesthat the world should talk about them. But the idea of your thinking that I should be astonished when you told me that you were head over ears in love with--with Miss Lambert! Nourri dans le sérail j'en connais les detours, Master Miles."
 
"And if not astonished, you were also not annoyed?"
 
"Annoyed! Not the least bit in the world. I don't mean to say that the matter looks to me entirely one of plain-sailing, my dear boy; there are certain difficulties which will naturally arise."
 
"Do you think that Grace's friends will make any obstacle? By the way, my dear lord, do you know anything of Miss Lambert's relations? I have never heard of or seen any connection but Mrs. Bloxam; but you who are so intimate with the young lady will probably know all about them."
 
A half-comic look of embarrassment overshadowed Lord Sandilands' face as he heard this inquiry, and he waited for a moment before he replied, "Not I, indeed, my dear Miles; Miss Lambert has never spoken to me of her relations--indeed, I understood from her that she was an orphan, left to Mrs. Bloxam's charge. I shouldn't think you need look for any objection to your marriage being made by the lady's friends."
 
"That is one point happily settled; then the world?"
 
"The what?"
 
"The opinion of the world."
 
"Ah, that's a very different matter! You're afraid of what people will say about your marrying a singer?"
 
"To you, dear old friend, I will confess candidly that I am. Not that I have any position, God knows, on the strength of which to give myself airs."
 
"My dear boy, that's where you mistake. If you hada position, you might marry not merely a charming and amiable and lovely girl like this, against whom no word ought to be uttered, but even a person without the smallest rag of reputation; and the world would say very little about it, and would speedily be silenced. Look at--no need, however, to quote examples. What I have said is the fact, and you know it."
 
"I am forced to acknowledge the truth of your remark, but while acknowledging it, I shall not permit the fact to turn me from my purpose. If Miss Lambert will accept me for a husband, I will gladly risk all the tattle of all the old cats in Belgravia."
 
"Your sentiments do you credit, my dear boy," said the old nobleman with a smile, "though the juxtaposition of 'tattle' and 'cats' is scarcely happy. I've noticed that when people are in love, the arrangement of their sentences is seldom harmonious. I suppose you feel tolerably certain of Miss Lambert's answer to your intended proposal. You are too much a man of the present day to anticipate any doubt in the matter."
 
"I should not be worth Miss Lambert's acceptance if I had any such vanity; and I know you're only joking in ascribing it to me."
 
"I was only joking; but now seriously, do you fear no rivals? You see how very much the young lady is sought after. Are you certain that her preference is given to you?"
 
"As certain as a man can be who has not 'put it to the touch to win or lose it all,' by ascertaining positively."
 
"And there is no one you are absolutely jealous of?"
 
"No one. Well,--no, not jealous of,--there is one man whom I regard with excessive distrust."
 
"You don't mean Lord Ticehurst?"
 
"O, no! Lord Ticehurst's manners are rough and odd; but he is a gentleman, and, I'm sure, would 'behave as such,' in every possible way, to Miss Lambert. Indeed, no duchess of his acquaintance can be treated with greater respect than she is by him. I would not say as much of the other man."
 
"Who is he?"
 
Miles hesitated a moment before he said, "Lord Ticehurst's great friend, Mr. Gilbert Lloyd."
 
"Mr. Gilbert Lloyd!" repeated Lord Sandilands, with a low whistle--"that's a very different matter. I don't mind telling you, my dear Miles, that I have had an uncomfortable impression about that young man ever since the first night we met him at Carabas House. It's singular too; for I know no real harm of the man. His tastes and pursuits are not such as interest or occupy me; though, of course, that is the case with scores of persons with whom I am acquainted, and towards whom I feel no such dislike. Very odd, isn't it?"
 
Miles looked hard at his friend to see ............