No, sir,--Rashleigh Osbaldistone will be more obscure, should he rise to be the richest citizen in London, than he might have been as a member of a church, whose ministers, as some one says, 'set their sandall'd feet on princes.' My family interest at a certain exiled court is high, and the weight which that court ought to possess, and does possess, at Rome is yet higher--my talents not altogether inferior to the education I have received.

In sober judgment, I might have looked forward to high eminence in the church--in the dream of fancy, to the very highest.

Why might not"-- (he added, laughing, for it was part of his manner to keep much of his discourse apparently betwixt jest and earnest)--"why might not Cardinal Osbaldistone have swayed the fortunes of empires, well-born and well-connected, as well as the low-born Mazarin, or Alberoni, the son of an Italian gardener ?" "Nay, I can give you no reason to the contrary; but in your place I should not much regret losing the chance of such precarious and invidious elevation." "Neither would I," he replied, "were I sure that my present establishment was more certain; but that must depend upon circumstances which I can only learn by experience--the disposition of your father, for example." "Confess the truth without finesse, Rashleigh; you would willingly know something of him from me ?" "Since, like Die Vernon, you make a point of following the banner of the good knight Sincerity, I reply--certainly." "Well, then, you will find in my father a man who has followed the paths of thriving more for the exercise they afforded to his talents, than for the love of the gold with which they are strewed.

His active mind would have been happy in any situation which gave it scope for exertion, though that exertion had been its sole reward.

But his wealth has accumulated, because, moderate and frugal in his habits, no new sources of expense have occurred to dispose of his increasing income.