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changed, the two friends, arm-in-arm, sauntered clubwards.

'What a sunny creature that is,' said Paulett, with something like a sigh. What a misfortune it is that one never knows the right woman at the right time. Twenty years ago, if I had met with her, I might have had a chance of success, and thenwhy, perhaps I should not be reduced to grinning through a horse-collar for my dinner, as is the case with me now.'

'Some to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more to turn it into use,'

muttered Brandreth. 'But, my dear old
fellow,' added he, 'what is the use of look-
ing back?
We all have the present, and we
all may have a future. You have been pick-
ing straws for years on Life's surface; you
should have gone deeper had you wanted
Pearls. It is not too late to seek them
now.'

6

And start for Ceylon or Madagascar, eh? By Jove, I'd go there or anywhere else to

make money. Could I get a Pearl-fishery? what fun it would be! and I am so confoundedly tired of that painted old-'

6

What a boy you are still,' said his friend, as they stood together on the steps of the I wish I were as young in heart

T-Club.

and feeling!'

The gaslight flashed upon these two faces, the one so thin and world-worn, and the other (despite his words) so full of hopeful energy; and, as they stood there, the pale full moon looked calmly down upon the sleeping city. Hushed seemed its millions of human animalculæ, and gone to rest its busy multidudes; but to thousands within its precincts night brought no calm, for the wounds of sin and sorrow fester everywhere, and the physicians that are abroad are powerless to heal.

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CHAPTER IX.

Stedfast, serene, unmovable, the same

Year after year, through all the silent night,
Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that inextinguishable light!'

LONGFELLOW.

'I BELIEVE I hate England,' said Arthur Brandreth, who had been paying a long visit, and enjoying an hour's cheerful 'chat' in Helen's drawing-room. Yes, I am sure I hate England.'

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'Would it seem pleasanter, and would you love it better without its faults?' asked his hostess.

6

No; but its faults have grown more flagrant, and it is a changed world since I knew it.'

6

You are ten years older, dear Mr. Brandreth; and at five-and-thirty the change is in ourselves. Have you never in manhood,

returned to scenes and places that as a child you thought grand and beautiful, and felt that the grandeur and the beauty had lain in your own want of power to contrast them with other and more imposing objects? Believe me that our views of life are often equally a mistake, and that ten years ago you understood them as a child does.'

'Would, then, that I had never tasted of the tree that makes men wise! But the change is not only in myself; believe me that it is not. You, and others who have lived on in this world of England, mark the difference no more than you do the gradual effects of time on the faces of those with whom you live. But years of absence have invested me with the power of drawing comparisons, and I can assure you that there are great changes for the worse, on the surface, as well as in the hidden places of social life.' 'And in what and in whom lies the difference?

But I need not ask for your answer will certainly be, that it is in woman.'

'You are right, and I believe that it is partly owing to the lamentable deterioration that I trace in them, that men have grown even harder, coarser, and more selfish than before.'

'You are hard upon your own sex,' remonstrated Helen.

'Not so hard as your sex is upon their own. I have heard and seen such strange things since I set foot in this evil city! The very air of it is pollution, or it could not so harden the heart and confuse the right judgment of those who belong to (what is still called by courtesy) the "softer sex."'

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But is it only in London: and is every woman in it forward, and foolish, and unfeeling? Surely here as elsewhere there are endless varieties of character. Surely, even here there must be some good to set against the mass of wrong and folly.'

Do not think me uncharitable when I say that it really seems as though the good became bad here, and the bad worse. I

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