social authority to succeed in our main enterprise. Possibly the
princess's name serves for a temporary chandelier to cast light on us.
She belongs to us. For her sake, we are bringing the house she enters
into order. Thus, Richie, I could tell Mr. Beltham: you and he supply
the money, the princess the name, and I the energy, the skilfulness, and
the estimable cause. I pay the princess for the use of her name with the
dowry, which is royal; I pay you with the princess, who is royal too; and
I, Richie, am paid by your happiness most royally. Together, it is past
contest that we win.--Here, my little one,' he said to a woman, and
dropped a piece of gold into her hand, 'on condition that you go straight
home.' The woman thanked him and promised. 'As I was observing, we are
in the very tide of success. Curious! I have a slight inclination to
melancholy. Success, quotha? Why, hundreds before us have paced the
identical way homeward at night under these lamps between the mansions
and the park. The bare thought makes them resemble a double line of
undertakers. The tomb is down there at the end of them--costly or not.
At the age of four, on my birthday, I was informed that my mother lay
dead in her bed. I remember to this day my astonishment at her not
moving. "Her heart is broken," my old nurse said. To me she appeared
intact. Her sister took possession of me, and of her papers, and the
wedding-ring--now in the custody of Dettermain and Newson--together with
the portraits of both my parents; and she, poor soul, to sustain me, as I
verily believe--she had a great idea of my never asking unprofitably for
anything in life--bartered the most corroborative of the testificatory
documents, which would now make the establishment of my case a
comparatively light task. Have I never spoken to you of my boyhood? My
maternal uncle was a singing-master and master of elocution. I am
indebted to him for the cultivation of my voice. He taught me an
effective delivery of my sentences. The English of a book of his called
The Speaker is still to my mind a model of elegance. Remittances of