part to ourselves individually, we have no right to deviate one single
iota from the rule of our conduct. Neither time nor circumstance must
cause us to modify or to change. Integrity knows no variation; honesty no
shadow of turning. We must pursue the same course--stern and
uncompromising--in the full persuasion that the path of right is like the
bridge from earth to heaven, in the Mahometan creed--if we swerve but a
single hair's breadth, we are irrevocably lost."

At this moment my mother joined us, with a "Well, my dear Henry, every
thing is ready--we have no time to lose."

My uncle rose, pressed my hand, and left in it a pocket-book, which I
afterwards discovered to be most satisfactorily furnished. We took an
edifying and affectionate farewell of each other, passed through the two
rows of servants, drawn up in martial array, along the great hall,
entered the carriage, and went off with the rapidity of a novel upon
"fashionable life."




CHAPTER XXXIX.

Dic--si grave non est--
Quae prima iratum ventrem placaverit esca.
--Horace.

I did not remain above a day or two in town. I had never seen much of the
humours of a watering-place, and my love of observing character made me
exceedingly impatient for that pleasure. Accordingly, the first bright