y for you; but the good sense you
must possess (for I judge of that by the education you have evidently
received) must tell you that a public man, whatever be his patronage,
has it too fully absorbed by claimants who have a right to demand it, to
be able to listen to strangers."

He paused a moment, and as Leonard stood silent, added with more
kindness than most public men so accosted would have shown,

"You say you are friendless,--poor fellow! In early life that happens
to many of us, who find friends enough before the close. Be honest, and
well-conducted: lean on yourself, not on strangers; work with the body
if you can't with the mind; and, believe me, that advice is all I can
give you, unless this trifle"--and the minister held out a crown-piece.

Leonard bowed, shook his head sadly, and walked away. Egerton looked
after him with a slight pang.

"Pooh!" said he to himself, "there must be thousands in the same
state in these streets of London. I cannot redress the necessities of
civilization. Well educated! It is not from ignorance henceforth that
society will suffer,--it is from over-educating the hungry thousands
who, thus unfitted for manual toil, and with no career for mental, will
some day or other stand like that boy in our streets, and puzzle wiser
ministers than I am."

As Egerton thus mused, and passed on to the bridge, a bugle-horn rang
merrily from the box of a gay four-in-hand. A drag-coach with superb
blood-horses rattled over the causeway, and in the driver Egerton
recognized his nephew, Frank Hazeldean.

The young Guardsman was returning with a lively party of men from dining
at Greenwich, and the careless laughter of these children of pleasure
floated far over the still river; it vexed the ear of the careworn
statesman,--sad, perhaps, with all his greatness, lonely amidst all his
crowd of friends. It reminded him, perhaps, of his own youth, when such
parties and companionships were familiar to him, though through them all
he had borne an ambitious, aspiring soul. "Le jeu vaut-il la chandelle?"
said he, shrugging his shoulders.

The coach rolled rapidly past Leonard, as he stood leaning against the
corner of the bridge, and the mire of the kennel splashed over him
from the hoofs of the fiery horses. The laughter smote on his ear more
discordantly than on the minister's, but it begot no envy.

"Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast.

And he walked slowly on, gained the recess wh