replied that it was perfectly so. But from that expression he easily
divined, that had it been otherwise, the Earl might have said nothing
reproachful, but would not have been well satisfied.

Wilton did not mistake the motives of the Earl: he knew him to be
anything but a penurious man; and he had long seen and been aware of the
motives on which that nobleman acted towards him. He knew that it was
with a wish to give him everything that was necessary and appropriate to
the situation in which he was placed, but by no means to encourage
expensive habits, or desires which might unfit him for the first
laborious steps which he was destined to tread in the path of life. He
felt, indeed, that there was an ambitious spirit in his own heart, and
it cost him many a struggle in thought, to regulate its action: to guide
it in the course of all that was good and right, but resolutely to
restrain it from following any other path. "Ambition," he thought, "is
like a falcon, and must be trained to fly only at what game I will. Its
proud spirit must be broken, to bend to this, and to submit to that; to
yield even to imaginary indignities, provided they imply no sacrifice of
real honour, and to strive for no false show, while I am striving for a
greater object."

Thus passed a year, but during that time the Earl's health had been in
no degree improved; and a number of painful events had taken place in
his political course which had left his mind more irritable than before,
while continual suffering had brought upon him a sort of desponding
recklessness, which made him cast behind him altogether those things
which he had previously considered the great objects of existence, and
desire nothing but to quit for ever the scene of political strife, and
pass the rest of his days in peace, if not in comfort.