Harrison discontentedly; "but he does not look like a married man,
somehow. I'll just step up stairs and change my cap: it would be but
civil if the gentleman's gentleman sups with us."

Meanwhile Clarence, having been left alone in the quiet enjoyment of
No. 4, had examined the little apartment with an interest not
altogether unmingled with painful reflections. There are few persons,
however fortunate, who can look back to eight years of their life, and
not feel somewhat of disappointment in the retrospect; few persons,
whose fortunes the world envy, to whom the token of past time suddenly
obtruded on their remembrance does not awaken hopes destroyed and
wishes deceived which that world has never known. We tell our
triumphs to the crowd, but our own hearts are the sole confidants of
our sorrows. "Twice," said Clarence to himself, "twice before have I
been in this humble room; the first was when, at the age of eighteen,
I was just launched into the world,--a vessel which had for its only
hope the motto of the chivalrous Sidney,--

'Aut viam inveniam, aut--faciam;'
["I will either find my way, or--make it.]

yet, humble and nameless as I was, how well I can recall the
exaggerated ambition, nay, the certainty of success, as well as its
desire, which then burned within me. I smile now at the overweening
vanity of those hopes,--some, indeed, realized, but how many nipped
and withered forever! seeds, of which a few fell upon rich ground and
prospered, but of which how far the greater number were scattered:
some upon the wayside, and were devoured by immediate cares; some on
stony places, and when the sun of manhood was up they were scorched,
and because they had no root withered away; and some among thorns, and