They might as well have gambled for thrones.  The princes, dukes, marquises, and counts drank their wines, ate their dinners, danced at their balls, kissed their hands, and—­laughed at them!

The reason was this:  the Misses Brudenell, though well-born, pretty, and accomplished, were not wealthy, and were even suspected of being heavily in debt, because of all this show.

And I would here inform my ambitious American readers who go abroad in search of titled husbands whom they cannot find at home, that what is going on in Paris then is going on in all the Old World capitals now; and that now, when foreign noblemen marry American girls, it is because the former want money and the latter have it.  If there is any exception to this rule, I, for one, never heard of it.

And so the Misses Brudenell, failing to marry into the nobility, were not married at all.

The expenditures of the mother and daughters in this speculation were enormous, so much so that at length Herman Brudenell, reckless as he was, became alarmed at finding himself on the very verge of insolvency!

He had signed so many blank checks, which his mother and sisters had filled up with figures so much higher than he had reckoned upon, that at last his Paris bankers had written to him informing him that his account had been so long and so much overdrawn that they had been obliged to decline cashing his last checks.

It was this that had startled Herman Brudenell out of his lethargy and goaded him to look into his affairs.  After examining his account with his Paris banker with very unsatisfactory results, he determined to retrench his own personal expenses, to arrange his estates upon the most productive plan, and to let out Brudenell Hall.

He wrote to the Countess of Hurstmonceux, requesting her to vacate the premises, and to his land-agent instructing him to let the estate.

In due course of time he received answers to both his letters.  That of the countess we have already seen; that of the land-agent informing him of the vast improvement of the estate during the residence of the Countess of Hurstmonceux upon it, and of the accumulation of its revenues, and finally of the large sum placed to his credit in the local bank by her ladyship.

This sum, of course, every sentiment of honor forbade Herman Brudenell from appropriating.  He therefore caused it to be withdrawn and deposited with Lady Hurstmonceux’s London bankers.

Soon after this he received notice that Brudenell Hall, stocked and furnished as it was, had been let to Mr. Middleton.

The accumulated revenues of the estate he devoted to paying his mother’s debts, and the current revenues to her support, warning her at the same time of impending embarrassments unless her expenses were retrenched.