honours would befall him.

The society of Eckart prevented me from urging him to puff me up with his
talk as I should have wished, and after I had sent the German to be taken
care of by Mrs. Waddy, I had grown so accustomed to the worldly view of
my position that I was fearing for its stability. Threats of a petition
against me were abroad. Supposing the squire disinherited me, could I
stand? An extraordinary appetite for wealth, a novel appreciation of
it--which was, in truth, a voluntary enlistment into the army of mankind,
and the adoption of its passions--pricked me with an intensity of hope
and dread concerning my dependence on my grandfather. I lay sleepless all
night, tossing from Riversley to Sarkeld, condemned, it seemed, to marry
Janet and gain riches and power by renouncing my hope of the princess and
the glory belonging to her, unless I should within a few hours obtain a
show of figures at my bankers.

I had promised Etherell to breakfast with him. A note--a faint
scream--despatched by Mrs. Waddy to Mr. Temple's house informed me that
'the men' were upon them. If so, they were the forerunners of a horde,
and my father was as good as extinguished. He staked everything on
success; consequently, he forfeited pity.

Good-bye to ambition, I thought, and ate heartily, considering robustly
the while how far lower than the general level I might avoid falling. The
report of the debates in morning papers--doubtless, more flowing and,
perhaps, more grammatical than such as I gave ear to overnight--had the
odd effect on me of relieving me from the fit of subserviency into which
the speakers had sunk me.

A conceit of towering superiority took its place, and as Etherell was
kind enough to draw me out and compliment me, I was attacked by a tragic
sense of contrast between my capacities and my probable fortunes. It was
open to me to marry Janet. But this meant the loosening of myself with my
own hand for ever from her who was my mentor and my glory, to gain whom I
was in the very tideway. I could not submit to it, though the view was
like that of a green field of the springs passed by a climber up the
crags. I went to Anna Penrhys to hear a woman's voice, and partly told
her of my troubles. She had heard Mr. Hipperdon express his confident
opinion that he should oust me from my seat. Her indignation was at my
service as a loan: it sprang up fiercely and spontaneously in allusions
to something relating to my father, of