“Then the ‘Patient Knight’ made no more ado, but drew his good sword and leapt lightly down into the Carrousel, where he picked the glove from the earth, and returning scatheless to his place, laid it in silence at her feet. “Then the ‘Scornful Ladye’ wept sweet and happy tears; for his great love had conquered at last, and she would follow him meekly now to the end of the world. “But she shed bitter tears on the morrow, when he rode into the lists with another’s sleeve in his helmet, another’s colours on his housings, and his shield blazoned with the fresh device of a broken fetter and the motto, ‘_Tout lasse—tout casse—tout passe!_’” So, you see, these adversaries changed places at last; and you will probably be of opinion that the Knight had the best of it in the end. Perhaps it “served her right.” And yet to me it seems that there may come a time when to have given gold for silver in every relation of life shall be the one consoling reflection that enables us to quit it without misgivings for the future, without regret for the past,—a time perhaps of hushed voices, stealthy footsteps, and a darkened room, growing yet strangely darker with every breath we draw. Or a time of eager comrades, trampling squadrons, short sharp words of command, a bugle sounding the Advance, a cocked-hat glancing through the smoke; a numb sick helplessness that glues the cheek into the dust where it has fallen, and a roll of musketry, feebler, farther, fainter, and more confused, till its warlike echoes die out in the hush of another world. Or a time of earth-stained garments, and bespattered friends proffering silver hunting-flasks in sheer dismay, and a favourite horse brought back with flying stirrups, dangling rein, and its mane full of mud, while the dull grey sky wheels above, and the dank, tufted grass heaves below, nor in the intervals of a pain, becoming every moment less keen, can we stifle the helpless consciousness that before our crushed frame shall be lifted from its wet, slippery resting-place, it will be time to die. At such moments as these, I say, to have given gold for silver while we could, can surely be no matter of regret. I recollect a quaint old tombstone—I beg your pardon for the allusion—on which I once read the following inscription:— “What I spent I _had_—what I saved I _lost_—what I gave I _have_.”