for a man whose sole ambition was to remain a squire, however beggarly.
Launch yourself into the larger world of metropolitan life with energies
wholly unshackled, a mind wholly undisturbed, and secure of an income
which, however modest, is equal to that of most young men who enter that
world as your equals."

Graham was convinced, and yielded, though with a bitter pang. It is hard
for a man whose fathers have lived on the soil to give up all trace of
their whereabouts. But none saw in him any morbid consciousness of
change of fortune, when, a year after his father's death, he reassumed
his place in society. If before courted for his expectations, he was
still courted for himself; by many of the great who had loved his father,
perhaps even courted more.

He resigned the diplomatic career, not merely because the rise in that
profession is slow, and in the intermediate steps the chances of
distinction are slight and few, but more because he desired to cast his
lot in the home country, and regarded the courts of other lands as exile.

It was not true, however, as Lemercier had stated on report, that he
lived on his pen. Curbing all his old extravagant tastes, L500 a year
amply supplied his wants. But he had by his pen gained distinction, and
created great belief in his abilities for a public career. He had
written critical articles, read with much praise, in periodicals of
authority, and had published one or two essays on political questions
which had created yet more sensation. It was only the graver literature,
connected more or less with his ultimate object of a public career, in
which he had thus evinced his talents of composition. Such writings were
not of a nature to bring him much money, but they gave him a definite and
solid station. In the old time, before the first Reform Bill, his