e in
troubling you with business--that's certain! And perhaps things may turn
out better than they look, in the end."

As Professor Valeyon pronounced this latter sentence, he smiled to
himself pleasantly and mysteriously. He seemed to fancy he had stronger
grounds for believing in a happy issue, than, for some reason, he was at
liberty to disclose. And the smile lingered about the corners of his
mouth and eyes, as if the issue in question were to be of that
peculiarly harmonious kind usually supposed to be reserved for the
themes of poems, or the conclusions of novels.

"I never was interested to hear of the every-day lives of men who have
loved, and wanted to make their way in the world; for I never expected I
should be such a man. Now, I'm sorry; it would have been useful to me,
wouldn't it?"

"Perhaps it might," responded the old gentleman, musing at the change in
the attitude of the young man's mind--once so self-sufficient and
assertive, now so dependent and inexperienced. "Very few lives are bare
and empty enough not to teach one something worth knowing. I know the
events of one man's life," he added, after a few moments of thoughtful
consideration; "perhaps it might lead to some good, if I were to tell
them to yon."

"Did he marry a woman he loved?" demanded Bressant.

"You can judge better of that when you hear what happened before his
marriage," returned the professor, apparently a little put out by the
abruptness of the question. "He made several mistakes in life; most of
them because he didn't pay respect enough to circumstances; thought that
to adhere to fixed principles was the whole duty of a man: nothing to be
allowed to the accidents of life, or to the various and unaccountable
natures of men, their uncertainty, fallibility, and so on. One of the
first resolutions he made--and he's never broken it, for when he grew
wise enough to do so, the opportunity had gone by forever--was never to
leave his native country. He wanted to prove to himself, and to
everybody else whom it might concern, that a man of fair abilities might
become learned and wise, without ever helping himself to the good things
that lay beyond the shadow of his native flag. 'The majority of people
have to live where they are born,' was his argument; 'I'll be their
representative.' Well, that would seem all well enough; but it stood in
his way twice--each time lost him an opportunity that has never come
again--the opportunity to be di