CHAPTER XVI.
IN LORD VERNEY'S LIBRARY.
Who should light upon Cleve that evening as he walked homeward but our friend Tom Sedley, who was struck by the anxious pallor and melancholy of his face.
Good-natured Sedley took his arm, and said he, as they walked on together,—
"Why don't you smile on your luck, Cleve?"
"How do you know what my luck is?"
"All the world knows that pretty well."
"All the world knows everything but its own business."
"Well, people do say that your uncle has lately got the oldest peerage—one of them—in England, and an estate of thirty-seven thousand a year, for one thing, and that you are heir-presumptive to these trifles."
"And that heirs-presumptive often get nothing but their heads in their hands."