"/Dal./ No; I am really sorry for you."

/German Play (False Delicacy)/.

* * * "What is here?

Gold."--SHAKSPEARE.

IT happened that that evening Maltravers had, for the first time,
accepted one of many invitations with which Lord Saxingham had honoured
him. His lordship and Maltravers were of different political parties,
nor were they in other respects adapted to each other. Lord Saxingham
was a clever man in his way, but worldly even to a proverb among worldly
people. That "man was born to walk erect and look upon the stars," is
an eloquent fallacy that Lord Saxingham might suffice to disprove. He
seemed born to walk with a stoop; and if he ever looked upon any stars,
they were those which go with a garter. Though of celebrated and
historical ancestry, great rank, and some personal reputation, he had
all the ambition of a /parvenu/. He had a strong regard for office, not
so much from the sublime affection for that sublime thing,--power over
the destinies of a glorious nation,--as because it added to that vulgar
thing--importance in his own set. He looked on his cabinet uniform as a
beadle looks on his gold lace. He also liked patronage, secured good
things to distant connections, got on his family to the remotest degree
of relationship; in short, he was of the earth, earthy. He did not
comprehend Maltravers; and Maltravers, who every day grew prouder and
prouder, despised him. Still, Lord Saxingham was told that Maltravers
was a rising man, and he thought it well to be civil to rising men, of
whatever party; besides, his vanity was flattered by having men who are