cold-blooded and hypocritical adventurer; while Ferrers, seeing that
Ernest could now be of no further use to him, was willing enough to drop
a profitless intimacy. Nay, he thought it would be wise to pick a
quarrel with him, if possible, as the best means of banishing a supposed
rival from the house of his noble relation, Lord Saxingham. But no
opportunity for that step presented itself; so Lumley kept a fit of
convenient rudeness, or an impromptu sarcasm, in reserve, if ever it
should be wanted.

The season and the session were alike drawing to a close, when
Maltravers received a pressing invitation from Cleveland to spend a week
at his villa, which he assured Ernest would be full of agreeable people;
and as all business productive of debate or division was over,
Maltravers was glad to obtain fresh air, and a change of scene.
Accordingly, he sent down his luggage and favourite books, and one
afternoon in early August rode alone towards Temple Grove. He was much
dissatisfied, perhaps disappointed, with his experience of public life;
and with his high-wrought and over-refining views of the deficiencies of
others more prominent, he was in a humour to mingle also censure of
himself, for having yielded too much to the doubts and scruples that
often, in the early part of their career, beset the honest and sincere,
in the turbulent whirl of politics, and ever tend to make the robust
hues that should belong to action

"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

His mind was working its way slowly towards those conclusions, which
sometimes ripen the best practical men out of the most exalted
theorists, and perhaps he saw before him the pleasing prospect
flatteringly exhibited to another, when he complained of being too