I am; he 'll tell you if I 'm easily put down. But Lackington
is a fool; he can't see the road before him!"

"You reckon, then, on being a debater!" said she, quietly.

"A little of everything, Miss Bella," said he, laughing; "like the
modern painters, not particular for a shade or two. I 'd not go wasting
my time with that old Tory lot,--they're all worked ont, aged and
weighted, as John Scott would call them--I'd go in with the young
uns,--the Manchester two-year-olds, universal--what d'ye call it?--and
vote by ballot. They 're the fellows have 'the tin,' by Jove! they
have."

"Then I scarcely see how Lord Lackington would advance his family
influence by promoting your views," said she, again.

"To be sure he would. It would be the safest hedge in the world for him.
He 'd square his book by it, and stand to win, no matter what horse
came in. Besides, why should they buy me, if I was n't against them? You
don't nobble the horse in your own stable,--eh, Kellett, old boy?"

"You're a wonderful fellow, Beecher!" said Kellett, in a most honest
admiration of his friend.

"If they'd only give me a chance, Paul,--just one chance!"

It was not very easy to see what blot in the game of life he purposed to
himself to "hit" when he used this expression, "if they only give me a
chance;" vague and indistinct as it was, still for many a year had it
served him as a beacon of hope. A shadow vision of creditors "done,"
horses "nobbled," awkward testimonies "squared," a millenary period
of bills easily discounted, with an indulgent Angel presiding over the
Bankrupt Court,--these and like blessings doubtless all flitted before
him as the fruits of that same "chance" which destiny held yet in store
for him.

Hope is a generous fairy; she deigns to sit beside the humblest
firesides,--she will linger even in the damp cell of the prison, or
rest her wings on the wave-tossed raft of the shipwrecked, and in such
mission is she thrice blessed! But by what strange caprice does she
visit the hearts of men like this? Perhaps it is that the very spirit of
her ministering is to despair of nothing.

We are by no means sure that our reader will take the same pleasure that
Kellett did in Beecher's society, and therefore we shall spare him
the narrative of their walk. They strolled along for hours, now by the
shingly shore, on which the waves swept smoothly, now inland, through
leafy lanes and narrow roads, freckled with patchy sunlight. The