more pleasant, yet your ascent more rapid."

Ardworth knit his brows, and his countenance assumed an expression of
doubt and curiosity. However, he only replied, with a blunt laugh,--

"You must be wise indeed if you have discovered a royal road to
distinction.

'Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where
Fame's proud temple shines afar!'

A more sensible exclamation than poets usually preface with their whining
'Ahs' and 'Ohs!'"

"What we are is nothing," pursued Madame Dalibard; "what we seem is
much."

Ardworth thrust his hands into his pockets and shook his head. The wise
woman continued, unheeding his dissent from her premises,--

"Everything you are taught to value has a likeness, and it is that
likeness which the world values. Take a man out of the streets, poor and
ragged, what will the world do with him? Send him to the workhouse, if
not to the jail. Ask a great painter to take that man's portrait,--rags,
squalor, and all,--and kings will bid for the picture. You would thrust
the man from your doors, you would place the portrait in your palaces.
It is the same with qualities; the portrait is worth more than the truth.
What is virtue without character? But a man without virtue may thrive on
a character! What is genius without success? But how often you bow to