replied, "that you really regret
to exchange the situation of an obscure Catholic priest, with all its
privations, for wealth and society, and the pleasures of the world?"

Rashleigh saw that he had coloured his affectation of moderation too
highly, and, after a second's pause, during which, I suppose, he
calculated the degree of candour which it was necessary to use with me
(that being a quality of which he was never needlessly profuse), he
answered, with a smile--"At my age, to be condemned, as you say, to
wealth and the world, does not, indeed, sound so alarming as perhaps it
ought to do. But, with pardon be it spoken, you have mistaken my
destination--a Catholic priest, if you will, but not an obscure one. No,
sir,--Rashleigh Osbaldistone will be more obscure, should he rise to be
the richest citizen in London, than he might have been as a member of a
church, whose ministers, as some one says, 'set their sandall'd feet on
princes.' My family interest at a certain exiled court is high, and the
weight which that court ought to possess, and does possess, at Rome is
yet higher--my talents not altogether inferior to the education I have
received. In sober judgment, I might have looked forward to high eminence
in the church--in the dream of fancy, to the very highest. Why might
not"--(he added, laughing, for it was part of his manner to keep much of
his discourse apparently betwixt jest and earnest)--"why might not
Cardinal Osbaldistone have swayed the fortunes of empires, well-born and
well-connected, as well as the low-born Mazarin, or Alberoni, the son of
an Italian gardener?"

"Nay, I can give you no reason to the contrary; but in your place I
should not much regret losing the chance of such precarious and invidious
elevation."

"Neither would I," he replied, "were I sure that my present establishment
was more certain; but that must depend upon circumstances which I can
only learn by experience--the disposition of your father, for example."

"Confess the truth without finesse, Rashleigh; you would willingly know
something of him from me?"

"Since, like Die Vernon, you make a point of following the banner of the
good knight Sincerity, I reply--certainly."

"Well, then, you will find in my father a man who has followed the paths
of thriving more for the exercise they afforded to his talents, than for
the love of the gold with which they are strewed. His active mind would
have been happy in any situation which gave