What a happy fellow! was the song of all who named you.

Bank, and a fortune to maintain it--luck sufficient to repair all the waste that you could make in your income, and skill to back that luck, or supply it should it for a moment fail you .-- The cards turning up as if to your wish--the dice rolling, it almost seemed, at your wink--it was rather your look than the touch of your cue that sent the ball into the pocket.

You seemed to have fortune in chains, and a man of less honour would have been almost suspected of helping his luck by a little art .-- You won every bet; and the instant that you were interested, one might have named the winning horse--it was always that which you were to gain most by .-- You never held out your piece but the game went down--and then the women!--with face, manners, person, and, above all, your tongue--what wild work have you made among them!--Good heaven! and have you had the old sword hanging over your head by a horsehair all this while ?--Has your rank been doubtful ?--Your fortune unsettled ?--And your luck, so constant in every thing else, has that, as well as your predominant influence with the women, failed you, when you wished to form a connexion for life, and when the care of your fortune required you to do so ?--Etherington, I am astonished!--The Mowbray scrape I always thought an inconvenient one, as well as the quarrel with this same Tyrrel, or Martigny; but I was far from guessing the complicated nature of your perplexities.
"But I must not run on in a manner which, though it relieves my own marvelling mind, cannot be very pleasant to you.

Enough, I look on my obligations to you as more light to be borne, now I have some chance of repaying them to a certain extent; but, even were the full debt paid, I would remain as much attached to you as ever.

It is your friend who speaks, Etherington; and, if he offers his advice in somewhat plain language, do not, I entreat you, suppose that your confidence has encouraged an offensive familiarity, but consider me as one who, in a weighty matter, writes plainly, to avoid the least chance of misconstruction.
"Etherington, your conduct hitherto has resembled anything rather than the coolness and judgment which are so peculiarly your own when you choose to display them.