they bedeck themselves. On my credit! the like good fortune may attend
you; and haply, when I dine at an ordinary a year hence, I may perceive
you at the upper table, with a curtain before you to keep off the meaner
company, and your serving-man at your back, holding your velvet mantle
and cap, like the best of your fellow nobles."

"Heaven grant it may be so!" the young man exclaimed, with a sigh. "You
hold a dazzling picture before me; but I have little expectation of
realizing it."

"It will be your own fault if you do not," the tempter rejoined. "You
are equally well-favoured with the handsomest of them; and it was by
good looks alone that the whole party rose to their present eminence.
Why not pursue the same course; with the same certainty of success? You
have courage enough to undertake it, I presume?"

"If courage alone were wanting, I have that," the young man
replied;--"but I am wholly unknown in town. How then shall I accomplish
an introduction at Court, when I know not even its humblest attendant?"

"I have already said you were lucky in meeting with me," Sir Francis
replied; "and I find you were luckier than I supposed, when I told you
so; for I knew not then towards what bent your desires tended, nor in
what way I could help you; but now, finding out the boldness of your
flight, and the high game you aim at, I am able to offer you effectual
assistance, and give you an earnest of a prosperous issue. Through my
means you shall be presented to the king, and in such sort that the
presentation shall not be idly made. It will rest then with yourself to
play your cards dexterously, and to follow up a winning game. Doubtless,
you will have many adversaries, who will trip up your heels if they can,