without prospects,--until
this fine ducal prospect became opened to him by the want of that
cradle at Matching Priory.

But the prospect was no doubt very distant. Lady Glencora might yet
have as many sons as Hecuba. Or she might die, and some other more
fortunate lady might become the mother of his cousin's heir. Or the
Duke might marry and have a son. And, moreover, his cousin was only
one year older than himself, and the great prize, if it came his way,
might not come for forty years as yet. Nevertheless his hand might
now be acceptable in quarters where it would certainly be rejected
had Lady Glencora possessed that cradle up-stairs. We cannot but
suppose that he must have made some calculations of this nature.

"It is a pity you should do nothing all your life," his cousin
Plantagenet said to him one morning just at this time. Jeffrey had
sought the interview in his cousin's room, and I fear had done so
with some slight request for ready money.

"What am I to do?" said Jeffrey.

"At any rate you might marry."

"Oh, yes;--I could marry. There's no man so poor but what he can do
that. The question would be how I might like the subsequent
starvation."

"I don't see that you need starve. Though your own fortune is small,
it is something,--and many girls have fortunes of their own."

Jeffrey thought of Lady Glencora, but he made no allusion to her in
speech. "I don't think I'm very good at that kind of thing," he said.
"When the father and mother came to ask of my house and my home I
should break down. I don't say it as praising myself;--indeed, quite
the reverse; but I fear I have not a mercenary tendency."

"That's nonsense."

"Oh, yes; quite so. I admit that."

"Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bread. The
man who ploughs that he may live does so because he, luckily, has a
mercenary tendency."

"Just so. But you see I am less lucky than the ploughman."

"There is no vulgar error so vulgar,--that is to say, common or
erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that
mercenary tendencies are bad. A desire for wealth is the source
of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let
your mercenary tendencies be combined with honesty and they cannot
take you astray." This the future Chancellor of the Exchequer said
with much of that air and tone of wisdom which a Chancellor of the
Exchequer ought to possess.

"But I haven't got any such tendencies," said