"Lady Ellinor shared her father's tastes and habits of thought (she was
not then an heiress). Lord Rainsforth talked to me of my career. It
was a time when the French Revolution had made statesmen look round with
some anxiety to strengthen the existing order of things, by alliance
with all in the rising generation who evinced such ability as might
influence their contemporaries.

"University distinction is, or was formerly, among the popular passports
to public life. By degrees, Lord Rainsforth liked me so well as to
suggest to me a seat in the House of Commons. A member of Parliament
might rise to anything, and Lord Rainsforth had sufficient influence to
effect my return. Dazzling prospect this to a young scholar fresh from
Thucydides, and with Demosthenes fresh at his tongue's end! My dear
boy, I was not then, you see, quite what I am now: in a word, I loved
Ellinor Compton, and therefore I was ambitious. You know how ambitious
she is still. But I could not mould my ambition to hers. I could not
contemplate entering the senate of my country as a dependent on a party
or a patron,--as a man who must make his fortune there; as a man who, in
every vote, must consider how much nearer he advanced himself to
emolument. I was not even certain that Lord Rainsforth's views on
politics were the same as mine would be. How could the politics of an
experienced man of the world be those of an ardent young student? But
had they been identical, I felt that I could not so creep into equality
with a patron's daughter. No! I was ready to abandon my own more
scholastic predilections, to strain every energy at the Bar, to carve or
force my own way to fortune; and if I arrived at independence, then,--
what then? Why, the right to speak of love and aim at power. This was
not the view of Ellinor Compton. The law seemed to her a tedious,
needless drudgery; there was nothing in it to captivate her imagination.
She listened to me with that charm which she yet retains, and by which