cellency, and the 'Klausthaller cabinet;' his Royal
Highness asked for it."

"Go back, then, now. I want for nothing more; only drop in here by and
by, and tell me how all goes on. Just light that pastil before you go;
there--that will, do."

And once more his Excellency was left to himself. In that vast
palace,--the once home of a royal prince,--no sounds of the distant
revelry could reach the remote quarter where he sat, and all was silent
and still around him, and Upton was free to ruminate and reflect at
ease. There was a sense of haughty triumph in thinking that beneath his
roof, at that very moment, were assembled the great representatives of
almost every important state of Europe, to whom he had not deigned
to accord the honor of his presence; but though this thought did flit
across his mind, far more was he intent on reflecting what might be the
consequences--good or evil--of the incident. "And then," said he, aloud,
"how will Printing House Square treat us? What a fulminating leader
shall we not have, denouncing either our insolence or our incompetence,
ending with the words: 'If, then, Sir Horace Upton be not incapacitated
from illness for the discharge of his high functions, it is full time
for his Government to withdraw him from a sphere where his caprice and
impertinence have rendered him something worse than useless;' and then
will come a flood of petty corroborations,--the tourist tribe who heard
of us at Berlin, or called upon as at the Hague, and whose unreturned
cards and uninvited wives are counts in the long indictment against us.
What a sure road to private friendships is diplomacy! How certain is one
of conciliating the world's good opinion by belonging to it! I wish
I had followed the law, or medicine," muttered he; "they are both
abstruse, both interesting; or been a gardener, or a shipwright, or a
mathematical instrument maker, or--" Whatever the next choice might have
been we know not, for he dropped off asleep.

From that pleasant slumber, and a dream of Heaven knows what life of
Arcadian simplicity, of rippling streams and soft-eyed shepherdesses,
he was destined to be somewhat suddenly, if not rudely, aroused, as
Franchetti introduced a stranger who would accept no denial.

"Your people were not for letting me up, Upton," cried a rich, mellow
voice; and Harcourt stood before him, bronzed and weather-beaten, as he
came off his journey.

"You, George? Is it possible!" exclaimed Sir Horace