Of what the knaves invent.--SEDLEY, _from Lycophron_.

THE next day Caroline returned to the rectory in Lady Raby's carriage;
and two hours after her arrival came Lord Vargrave. Mr. Merton had
secured the principal persons in the neighbourhood to meet a guest so
distinguished, and Lord Vargrave, bent on shining in the eyes of Evelyn,
charmed all with his affability and wit. Evelyn, he thought, seemed pale
and dispirited. He pertinaciously devoted himself to her all the
evening. Her ripening understanding was better able than heretofore to
appreciate his abilities; yet, inwardly, she drew comparisons between his
conversation and that of Maltravers, not to the advantage of the former.
There was much that amused but nothing that interested in Lord Vargrave's
fluent ease. When he attempted sentiment, the vein was hard and hollow;
he was only at home on worldly topics. Caroline's spirits were, as usual
in society, high, but her laugh seemed forced, and her eye absent.

The next day, after breakfast, Lord Vargrave walked alone to Burleigh.
As he crossed the copse that bordered the park, a large Persian greyhound
sprang towards him, barking loudly; and, lifting his eyes, he perceived
the form of a man walking slowly along one of the paths that intersected
the wood. He recognized Maltravers. They had not till then encountered
since their meeting a few weeks before Florence's death; and a pang of
conscience came across the schemer's cold heart. Years rolled away from
the past; he recalled the young, generous, ardent man, whom, ere the
character or career of either had been developed, he had called his
friend. He remembered their wild adventures and gay follies, in climes
where they had been all in all to each other; and the beardless boy,
whose heart and purse were ever open to him, and to whose very errors of
youth and inexperienced passion he, the elder and the wiser, had led and
tempted, rose before him in contrast to the grave and melancholy air of