But the warning was unheeded, and the folly and extravagance of his mother and sisters were unabated.  Like all other desperate gamblers, the heavier their losses the greater became their stakes; they went on living in the best hotels, keeping the most expensive servants, driving the purest blooded horses, wearing the richest dresses and the rarest jewels, giving the grandest balls, and—­to use a common but strong phrase—­“going it with a rush!” All in the desperate hope of securing for the young ladies wealthy husbands from among the titled aristocracy.

At length came another crisis; and once more Herman Brudenell was compelled to intervene between them and ruin.  This he did at a vast sacrifice of property.

He wrote and gave Mr. Middleton warning to leave Brudenell Hall at the end of the year, because, he said, that he himself wished to return thither.

He did return thither; but it was only to sell off, gradually and privately, all the stock on the home-farm, all the plate, rich furniture, rare pictures, statues, vases, and articles of virtu in the house, and all the old plantation negroes—­ancient servants who had lived for generations on the premises.

While he was at this work he instituted cautious inquiries about “one of the tenants, Hannah Worth, the weaver, who lived at Hill hut, with her nephew”; and he learned that Hannah was prosperously married to Reuben Gray and had left the neighborhood with her nephew, who had received a good education from Mr. Middleton’s family school.  Brudenell subsequently received a letter from Mr. Middleton himself, recommending to his favorable notice “a young man named Ishmael Worth, living on the Brudenell estates.”

But as the youth had left the neighborhood with his relatives, and as Mr. Brudenell really hoped that he was well provided for by the large sum of money for which he had given Hannah a check on the day of his departure, and as he was overwhelmed with business cares, and lastly, as he dreaded rather than desired a meeting with his unknown son, he deferred seeking him out.

When Brudenell Hall was entirely dismantled, and all the furniture of the house, the stock of the farm, and the negroes of the plantation, and all the land except a few acres immediately around the house had been sold, and the purchase money realized, he returned to Paris, settled his mother’s debts, and warning her that they had now barely sufficient to support them in moderate comfort, entreated her to return and live quietly at Brudenell Hall.

But no!  “If they were poor, so much the more reason why the girls should marry rich,” argued Mrs. Brudenell; and instead of retrenching her expenses, she merely changed the scene of her operations from Paris to London, forgetting the fact everyone else remembered, that her “girls,” though still handsome, because well preserved, were now mature women of thirty-two and thirty-five.  Herman promised to give them the whole proceeds of his property, reserving