you cannot apply it to indefinite thoughts; it isn't effective with vague
presentiments. And when Gregory's insolence was taken away from him, he
was very like other mortals; virtue had gone out of him; his brown cheek
and frank eye had lost something of their charm. It was these unusual
broodings that worried him; he waked up suddenly one night calling,
"Margaret! Margaret!" like any childlike lover. And that did not
please him. He believed in things that, as he said himself, "he could
get between his fingers;" he had little sympathy with morbid
sentimentalities. But there was an English Margaret in his life; and he,
like many another childlike man, had fallen in love, and with her--very
much in love indeed; and a star had crossed his love to a degree that
greatly shocked him and pleased the girl's relatives. She was the
granddaughter of a certain haughty dame of high degree, who regarded
icily this poorest of younger sons, and held her darling aloof. Gregory,
very like a blunt unreasoning lover, sought to carry the redoubt by wild
assault; and was overwhelmingly routed. The young lady, though finding
some avowed pleasure in his company, accompanied by brilliant
misunderstanding of his advances and full-front speeches, had never given
him enough encouragement to warrant his playing young Lochinvar in Park
Lane; and his cup became full when, at the close of the season, she was
whisked off to the seclusion of a country-seat, whose walls to him were
impregnable. His defeat was then, and afterwards, complete. He pluckily
replied to the derision of his relatives with multiplied derision,
demanded his inheritance, got his traps together, bought a fur coat,
and straightway sailed the wintry seas to Canada.

His experiences had not soured his temper. He believed that every dog
has his day, and that Fate was very malicious; that it brought down the
proud, and rewarded the patient; that it took up its abode in marble
halls, and was the mocker at the feast. All this had reference, of