by a sunbeam. Crosbie had his opinion on things,--on politics, on
religion, on the philanthropic tendencies of the age, and had read
something here and there as he formed his opinion. Perhaps he might
have done better in the world had he not been placed so early in life
in that Whitehall public office. There was that in him which might
have earned better bread for him in an open profession.

But in that matter of his bread the fate of Adolphus Crosbie had by
this time been decided for him, and he had reconciled himself to fate
that was now inexorable. Some very slight patrimony, a hundred a year
or so, had fallen to his share. Beyond that he had his salary from
his office, and nothing else; and on his income, thus made up, he had
lived as a bachelor in London, enjoying all that London could give
him as a man in moderately easy circumstances, and looking forward to
no costly luxuries,--such as a wife, a house of his own, or a stable
full of horses. Those which he did enjoy of the good things of the
world would, if known to John Eames, have made him appear fabulously
rich in the eyes of that brother clerk. His lodgings in Mount Street
were elegant in their belongings. During three months of the season
in London he called himself the master of a very neat hack. He was
always well dressed, though never overdressed. At his clubs he could
live on equal terms with men having ten times his income. He was
not married. He had acknowledged to himself that he could not marry
without money; and he would not marry for money. He had put aside
from him, as not within his reach, the comforts of marriage. But-- We
will not, however, at the present moment inquire more curiously into
the private life and circumstances of our new friend Adolphus
Crosbie.

After the sentence pronounced against him by Lilian, the two girls