I wonder? Times _must_ change, I suppose." He sighed, and instead of
throwing the rose away, he slipped it into an envelope and locked it
into his desk.




CHAPTER III.


The Honourable Edward Percy was the younger son of the Earl of
Lastingham, and might therefore be readily excused if he considered
himself a person of some importance in a country where a baronetcy is
the highest hereditary dignity, and where many of the existing
"honourables" began life as country storekeepers or schoolmasters. It is
true that in his own proper orbit, this luminary appeared but a star of
small magnitude, his handsome person and agreeable qualities making
slight compensation for a want of fortune which he had always considered
a special hardship in his own case; regarding himself as admirably
fitted by nature for spending money, and knowing by experience that his
abilities were totally inadequate to saving it. His family was not rich;
so far from it, indeed, that the great object of the Earl had been to
marry his daughters like Harpagon's "sans dot," a task which was not yet
satisfactorily accomplished; and all he had been able to do for his
younger son, had been to use the very small political influence he
possessed, to start him in life as an _attaché_.

So the young man had seen various Courts, and improved his French and
German; and at nearly thirty years of age he had begun to think that it
was time to take another step in life.