There was a little pause; Richard broke it by saying—­

“Do you know, Mimie, I’ve a notion, if she plays her cards well, she may hook Farquhar!”

“Who?” asked Jemima shortly, though she knew quite well.

“Mrs. Denbigh, to be sure.  We were talking of her, you know.  Farquhar asked me to dine with him at his hotel as he passed through town, and—­I’d my own reasons for going and trying to creep up his sleeve—­I wanted him to tip me, as he used to do.”

“For shame!  Dick,” burst in Jemima.

“Well, well! not tip me exactly, but lend me some money.  The governor keeps me deucedly short.”

“Why! it was only yesterday, when my father was speaking about your expenses, and your allowance, I heard you say that you’d more than you knew how to spend.”

“Don’t you see that was the perfection of art?  If my father had thought me extravagant, he would have kept me in with a tight rein; as it is, I’m in great hopes of a handsome addition, and I can tell you it’s needed.  If my father had given me what I ought to have had at first, I should not have been driven to the speculations and messes I’ve got into.”

“What speculations?  What messes?” asked Jemima, with anxious eagerness.

“Oh! messes was not the right word.  Speculations hardly was; for they are sure to turn out well, and then I shall surprise my father with my riches.”  He saw that he had gone a little too far in his confidence, and was trying to draw in.  “But what do you mean?  Do explain it to me.”

“Never you trouble your head about my business, my dear.  Women can’t understand the share-market, and such things.  Don’t think I’ve forgotten the awful blunders you made when you tried to read the state of the money-market aloud to my father that night when he had lost his spectacles.  What were we talking of?  Oh! of Farquhar and pretty Mrs. Denbigh.  Yes!  I soon found out that was the subject my gentleman liked me to dwell on.  He did not talk about her much himself, but his eyes sparkled when I told him what enthusiastic letters Polly and Elizabeth wrote about her.  How old do you think she is?”

“I know!” said Jemima.  “At least I heard her age spoken about, amongst other things, when first she came.  She will be five-and-twenty this autumn.”

“And Farquhar is forty, if he is a day.  She’s young, too, to have such a boy as Leonard; younger-looking, or full as young-looking as she is!  I tell you what, Mimie, she looks younger than you.  How old are you?  Three-and-twenty, ain’t it?”

“Last March,” replied Jemima.

“You’ll have to make haste and pick up somebody, if you’re losing your good looks at this rate.  Why, Jemima, I thought you had a good chance of Farquhar a year or two ago.  How come you to have lost him?  I’d far rather you’d had him than that proud, haughty Mrs. Denbigh, who flashes her great grey eyes upon me if ever I dare to pay her a compliment.  She ought to think it