PISISTRATUS.--Do not think me ungrateful, then, when I say I come to resign my office--to leave the house where I have been so happy. TREVANION.--Leave the house!--Pooh!--I have overtasked you. I will be more merciful in future. You must forgive a political economist--it is the fault of my sect to look upon men as machines. PISISTRATUS--(_smiling faintly_.)--No, indeed--that is not it! I have nothing to complain of--nothing I could wish altered--could I stay. TREVANION (_examining me thoughtfully_.)--And does your father approve of your leaving me thus? PISISTRATUS--Yes, fully. TREVANION (_musing a moment_.)--I see, he would send you to the University, make you a book-worm like himself: pooh! that will not do--you will never become wholly a man of books,--it is not in you. Young man, though I may seem careless, I read characters, when I please it, pretty quickly. You do wrong to leave me; you are made for the great world--I can open to you a high career. I wish to do so! Lady Ellinor wishes it--nay, insists on it--for your father's sake as well as yours. I never ask a favour from ministers, and I never will. But (here Trevanion rose suddenly, and, with an erect mien and a quick gesture of his arm, he added)--but a minister himself can dispose as he pleases of his patronage. Look you, it is a secret yet, and I trust to your honour. But, before the year is out, I must be in the cabinet. Stay with me, I guarantee your fortunes--three months ago I would not have said that. By-and-by I will open parliament for you--you are not of age yet--work till then. And now sit down and write my letters--a sad arrear!" "My dear, dear Mr Trevanion!" said I, so affected that I could scarcely speak, and seizing his hand, which I pressed between both mine--"I dare not thank you--I cannot! But you don't know my heart--it is not ambition. No! if I could but stay here on the same terms for ever--_here_--(looking ruefully on that spot where Fanny had stood the night before,) but it is impossible! If you knew all, you would be the first to bid me go!" "You are in debt," said the man of the world, coldly. "Bad, very bad--still--" "No, sir; no! worse--" "Hardly possible to be worse, young man--hardly! But, just as you will; you leave me, and will not say why. Good-by. Why do you linger? shake hands, and go!" "I cannot leave you thus: I--I--sir, the truth shall out. I am rash and mad enough not to see Miss Trevanion without forgetting that I am poor, and--" "Ha!" interrupted Trevanion softly, and growing pale, "this is a misfortune indeed! And I, who talked of reading characters! Truly, truly, we would-be practical men are fools--fools! And you have made love to my daughter!"