and wholly deserted by her husband, who knew that he had no chance of obtaining further means of carrying on his profligate career.  His death in a duel, which we have before mentioned, took place a few months after the transaction, and Mrs Revel was attacked with that painful disease, a cancer, so deeply seated as to be incurable.  Still she was the same frivolous, heartless being; still she sighed for pleasure, and to move in those circles in which she had been received at the time of her marriage.  But, as her income diminished, so did her acquaintances fall off; and at the period of Isabel’s return, with the exception of Mr Heaviside and one or two others, she was suffered to pine away in seclusion.

Isabel was greeted with querulous indifference until the explanation of the first ten minutes; then, as an heiress, with the means as well as the desire of contributing to her mother’s comforts, all was joy and congratulation.  Her incurable disease was for the time forgotten; and although pain would occasionally draw down the muscles of her face, as soon as the pang was over, so was the remembrance of her precarious situation.  Wan and wasted as a spectre, she indulged in anticipation of again mixing with the fashionable world, and talked of chaperoning Isabel to private parties and public amusements, when she was standing on the brink of eternity.  Isabel sighed as she listened to her mother, and observed her attenuated frame; occasionally she would refer to her mother’s state of health, and attempt to bring her to that serious state of mind which her awful situation demanded; but in vain:  Mrs Revel would evade the subject.  Before a week had passed, she had set up an equipage, and called upon many of her quondam friends to announce the important intelligence of her daughter’s wealth.  Most of them had long before given orders not to be “at home to Mrs Revel.”  The few to whom, from the remissness of their porters, she obtained admittance, were satisfied at their servants’ negligence when they heard the intelligence which Mrs Revel had to communicate.  “They were so delighted; Isabel was always such a sweet girl; hoped that Mrs Revel would not be such a recluse as she had been, and that they should prevail upon her to come to their parties!” An heiress is of no little consequence when there are so many younger brothers to provide for; and, before a short month had flown away, Mrs Revel, to her delight, found that the cards and invitations of no inconsiderable portion of the beau monde covered the table of her confined drawing-room.  To Isabel, who perceived that her mother was sinking every day under the exertion she went through, all this was a source of deep regret.  It occurred to her that to state her engagements with Newton Forster would have some effect in preventing this indirect suicide.  She took an opportunity of confiding it to her mother, who listened to her with astonishment.