s house. The poor and scanty furniture scattered around; the
old, tuneless, broken harpsichord; the worn and tattered carpet; the
tenantless birdcage in the recess by the window; the bookshelves,
containing some dozens of worthless volumes; the sofa of the last
century (when, if people knew comfort, they placed it not in lounging)
small, narrow, highbacked, hard, and knotted; these, just as his
father had left, just as his boyhood had seen, them, greeted him with
a comfortless and chill, though familiar welcome. It was evening:
he ordered a fire and lights; and leaning his face on his hand as he
contemplated the fitful and dusky outbreakings of the flame through the
bars of the niggard and contracted grate, he sat himself down to hold
commune with his heart.

"So, I love this woman," said he, "do I? Have I not deceived myself? She
is poor--no connection; she has nothing whereby to reinstate my house's
fortunes, to rebuild this mansion, or repurchase yonder demesnes. I love
her! _I_ who have known the value of her sex so well, that I have said,
again and again, I would not shackle life with a princess! Love may
withstand possession--true--but not time. In three years there would be
no glory in the face of Constance, and I should be--what? My fortunes,
broken as they are, can support me alone, and with my few wants. But if
married! the haughty Constance my wife! Nay, nay, nay! this must not
be thought of! I, the hero of Paris! the pupil of Saville! I, to be so
beguiled as even to _dream_ of such a madness!

"Yet I have that within me that might make a stir in the world--I might
rise. Professions are open; the Diplomacy, the House of Commons. What!
Percy Godolphin be ass enough to grow ambitious! to toil, to fret, to
slave, to answer fools on a first principle, and die at length of a
broken heart for a lost place! Pooh, pooh! I, who despise your prime
ministers, can scarcely stoop to their apprenticeship. Life is too
short for toil. And what do men strive for?--to enjoy: but why not enjoy
without the toil? And relinquish Constance? Ay, it is but one woman
lost!"

So ended the soliloquy of a man scarcely of age. The world teaches us
its last lessons betimes; but then, lest we should have nothing left to
acquire from its wisdom, it employs the rest of our life in unlearning
all that it first taught.

Meanwhile, the time approached when Lord Erpingham was to arrive at
Wendover Castle; and at length came the day itself. Na