CHAPTER LXIV.

FROM FLOWER TO FLOWER.

Mr. Blount was intelligent: he was an effective though not an artful diplomatist. He promptly undertook to sound Mr. Longcluse without betraying Sir Richard.

Richard Arden did not allude to his losses. He took good care to appear pretty nearly as usual. When he confessed his _tendresse_ for Miss Maubray, the grave gentleman smiled brightly, and took him by the hand.

"If _you_ should marry the young lady, mark you, she will have sixty thousand pounds down, and sixty thousand more after Mr. David Arden's death. That is splendid, Sir, and I think it will please him _very_ much."

"I have suffered a great deal, Mr. Blount, by neglecting his advice hitherto. It shall be my chief object, henceforward, to reform, and to live as he wishes. I believe people can't learn wisdom without suffering."

"Will you take a biscuit and a glass of sherry, Sir Richard?" asked Mr. Blount.

"Nothing, thanks," said Sir Richard. "You know, I'm not as rich as I might have been, and marriage is a very serious step; and you are one of the oldest and most sensible friends I have, and you'll understand that it is only right I should be very sure before taking such a step, involving not myself only, but another who ought to be dearer still, that there should be no mistake about the means on which we may reckon. Are you quite sure that my uncle's intentions are still exactly what you mentioned?"

"Perfectly; he authorised me to say so two months ago, and on the eve of his departure on Friday last he repeated his instructions."

Sir Richard, in silence, shook the old man very cordially by the hand, and was gone.

As he drove to his house in May Fair, Sir Richard's thoughts, among other things, turned again upon the question, "Who could his mysterious benefactor be?"

Once or twice had dimly visited his mind a theory which, ever since his recent conversation with Mr. Levi, had been growing more solid and