Part the Second.

CHAPTER I.

'Her feet, beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But, oh, she dances such a way,
No sun upon an Easter-day

Is half so fine a sight.'-SIR JOHN SUCKLING. NEVER had Old Trememdon Castle been fuller of welcome guests than during one Christmas time, when, all the family having unexpectedly assembled together, the mirth and jollity which prevailed knew scarcely any bounds. Several years had elapsed since Ralph was at Old Trememdon. The girls had grown up. Lady Eleanor, who had turned twenty, was majestic and stately. She and the young Viscount, who had obtained leave of absence for a week from his regiment—he was in the Guards—were similar in tastes and dispositions. The Viscount had not long returned from college; Lord Alfred had never learnt a lesson outside his father's home. People said Reginald always did the correct thing, and Alfred the natural thing. Until the latter took to yachting he and the three-days-old used to be bosom companions. She seemed to be growing more beautiful every day. Look at her as she trips along the snow-clad, broad gravel path leading to the lodge gates! She and Lady Gertrude, a dear, good girl, are bound for Trememdon village. They are going to see that 'everybody has everything,' as Lady Beatrice Violet Playfair puts it. And everybody always did have everything at Old Trememdon at Christmas, and every other time too; it was their own faults if they did not.

'Here comes my precious little flower,' poor old Betty Nairn was heard to murmur as the two young ladies stepped merrily down the well-paved streets. Oh, what delicious sounds those tiny heels did make as they tapped the hard, smooth flags! what thrilling music they conveyed! The two young girls walked briskly on, keeping step with military precision; tap, tap-tap, tap--down they went! They turned a corner in the winding village, and then prepared to descend the hill to the beach. The snow was not swept here; but what was that to Trememdon girls?

'Let's run,' cries Beatrice merrily.

'Come on,' shouts Gertrude; 'there's no one looking if we do fall.'

And fall they did. Yes, both, arm in arm, and rolled in the soft white snow together. Oh, what a display of lovelysymmetry Lady Beatrice had challenged her sister to the rash attempt, therefore the pretty little scenes which followed are sacred.

Ah, to have had one little peep under those jaunty little hats the Trememdon girls were wearing! it would have repaid even you, sir, to have gone down as far as Bluffshire to have witnessed the sight that Christmas morning.

'Here comes my pretty little rose again,' said old Betty, as the two young ladies again stepped merrily and in the highest of bright spirits along those welcome flags in front of Betty's house.

Good morning, Betty;' 'Good morning, dear old Betty,' said they, the more endearing salutation proceeding from the younger. Old Betty wishing them good morning in return in trembling voice, Beatrice softly and kindly inquired after her health, and whether she had all she wanted;' and old Betty said, 'Lor' bless you, miss! more, much more.'

A fine, handsome woman must Betty have been in her youth, for traces of more than rustic beauty still remained. A pleasant admixture of freedom and respect was observable in her manner when addressing Lady Beatrice, which betokened the existence of ties beyond those usually existing between the humble cottager and those above them in rank and position. From her infancy Lady Beatrice had been her especial charge, and only upon her son joining the coast-guard service had old Betty consented to yield her up to others and leave the Castle in order to watch over her boy's welfare.

'Only fancy, Sissy,' said Lady Beatrice to her sister, as they returned from their errand of love, 'Betty is turned seventy-four! she must require a little looking after.'

Everybody now has got all they want,' returned Lady Gertrude, kissing Beatrice's little plump cheeks the while.

'I am so glad,' was Beatrice's reply.

The old Marquis was in the jolliest of jolly humours. These did not often vary, but at this Christmas time his spirits seemed to have been bottled up for years, ready to be poured forth in a ceaseless flow of open-heartedness, merriment, and good will.

That vagabond young chap, Alfred, is back again,' said he, and has not been taken for a privateer or cruiser; for my own

pet boy, and his sisters' darling, as they call him, so sure as Christmas came round was as certain to be thousands of miles away in some unheard-of fortified harbour, or dodging about in search of wonderful sunsets or scenic effects, the Lord knows where ! Why, his adventures in Fernland along with that what's his name he's for ever raving about

'Ralph Osborne, papa,' whispered Lady Beatrice, with a half curious, half bashful expression depicted on her features.

'Ralph Osborne it is, my darling baby,' said the Marquis, turning towards her.

'Papa, I'm getting too old to be called baby now,' said the young lady gleefully, accompanying the correction with a kiss which would have reached to just about the jolly old Marquis's third button had he not stooped and pressed his youngest and favourite daughter fondly to his bosom, and kissed her warm, coral lips.

Where is Ralph, Walter?' asked Lord Alfred Playfair, during a game of billiards that evening.

Lady Beatrice played & saucy, rattling stroke; not a waiting game. She was winning now, but in a moment her hand trembles-she is put off her stroke.

'Birdie darling, go on, there's a dear,' said Lady Eleanor kindly to her.

She went on, pocketing her ball, and from that moment tired of the game. Timidly gliding towards Walter, she appeared as though about to ask him something; looked first round the room, and then at him, and finally retired without saying a word.

Walter informed them that Ralph had turned up once or twice at his place;' he believed he was abroad, but did not know where. Cues were put down for the moment-there was an evident movement among the little group-when they were resumed Lady Beatrice played, and lost. It was a coincidence that she was often to be seen regarding a certain likeness with more interest than all the others put together, and that this likeness, by some unaccountable fatality, hung in her own boudoir. Perhaps her brother had often and often talked to his little pet sister about Ralph Osborne; perhaps she had listened.

Walter Maxwell, to whom the Marquis had taken a great fancy, had been introduced to Trememdon Castle by Lord Alfred, who was so pleased with him that he had got him to accompany him in the Sybil, on her return from Fernland. Walter could tell him, he said, more about his own mines in one half-hour than all his Captains, Secretaries, and Reports in a month; and he often got an invitation to the Castle.

And bring your friends, too, Mr. Maxwell,' said the Marquis. Walter Maxwell had never brought his friends. He had put the Marquis up to so many good things:' never but once had he asked him to put his name to a swindle, and the look Walter got when the old Marquis scented it afar made Walter Maxwell's blood run cold; he withdrew it at once- All a mistake,' he said; 'twas something he was going to-expose!

Walter was taught a lesson. The old Marquis, honesty himself, believed Walter, and the matter passed. And then Walter possessed so much information' that he was growing fast in his favour, and becoming invaluable. The Marquis was getting immensely rich, too, so everybody believed.

And this Christmas passed off in the merriest manner at Old Trememdon. Ralph Osborne had sought far and near for Lord Alfred, and at length, seeing his name in the papers, had dashed off to Beauville, in time to find him gone. Ralph had just been done out of his thousands in that little State swindle.' He, poor boy, was thirsting for-revenge! against whom? that hawk-eyed broker, who in glowing language had inveigled him into the venture? that Undone Vortex Committee who had sanctioned the swindle? the first-class bankers and stainless lawyers, all so 'highly respectable,' who had lent their names to it? or the wretched little Countree which he had reason to suspect was possibly as much sinned against as sinning? Ralph couldn't tell. First, he thought it was the broker. What man of honour, asked he, would issue a prospectus which ruined thousands? ‘I could not do it,' cried Ralph, with the utmost indignation; 'or if I did, I would, on bended knees, extort their pardon. I would wear sackcloth all my days, turn hermit, or, better, road-sweeper, and so catch frantic, bolting horses, with lovely girls thereon, and save a life perhaps! I'd risk my own if I could thus, retrieving my fate, begin afresh. Ah, thus to expiate my ignominy! And then, the Undone Vortex Committee?'

6

They are all either Brokers or Jobbers; that's enough,' said his friend Fullheart to him.

1

CHAPTER II.

'The earth was fev'rous and did shake :

Remembrance cannot parallel a fellow to it.'
SHAKESPEARE.

6

6

'EVERY one must have a Vortex broker' was an axiom in the days I'm speaking of. Ralph had his, and his broker was a robber. Ralph didn't know it; how should he? But seasons came and went, and with them the inevitable 'panic,' as of yore, of longer or shorter duration, which his former broker, the respectable firm,' and a number of congenial members combined, undertook skilfully to engineer.' And now the foul current which flowed beneath the surface was revealed. These members of the Undone Vortex, having bound themselves together, concocted and spread about the most infamous lies, the real purport of which was soon apparent. Wanton and unheard-of stories were fabricated in other quarters. The number of unscrupulous agents augmented. Folly succeeded wickedness, and madness. folly; the 'method in their madness' was well planned, and ablyacted frenzy followed in its train.

Total

'General monetary collapse!' was the universal cry. failure in the Vortex!' 'No settlement for the "account"!"

'Gold-ring !' 'Bullion demand!' Suspension of the Old Countree Bank Act!' &c., &c. Forged telegrams flew hither and thither. Ralph got one professing to come from a friend of his a very knowing fellow. He did not know it came from his broker-how could he? it was so, however. Here it is: 'Affairs are approaching a terrible climax! Crisis imminent ! Must be much worse before better! Get out of all your holdings! No time to lose!' 'Well, by Jove!' said Verdant; 'here's a decent fellow. No time to lose! where's my broker?'

'Proof poz.,' said his broker, who quietly stood at his elbow. This broker was a 'bear,' that is, he had sold at the highest a lot of things' which he never in his lifetime possessed, and judging the worst of the storm which he and numbers of other kindred spirits had fomented was over-in other words, that the net of victims was full to bursting-he, anxious to make sure of his share of the plunder, desired to 'close his account,' now 'open for the fall,' and by buying back again these never-acquired stocks, shares, &c., pocket his profits, and make of Ralph Osborne his victim! Ralph had never been a bear' or a 'bull' either. Had he been asked to bet on a horse he would have shrunk from the idea; but gambling on the Undone Vortex