“I know I’m not good enough for her, D’Orville,” the humbled dandy would sigh, as he poured his griefs into his friend’s ear. “I’m not very ‘blue,’ and that sort of thing, though I suppose I’ve got natural talents just like other fellows; but I stood by her when all the rest gave way, and I was the only one amongst ’em that really liked her for herself and not for her money. Why, you yourself, D’Orville” (the Major winced), “you yourself never made up to her after you heard of the smash, nor Mount Helicon, nor Uppy, nor any of ’em; to be sure she had refused Uppy; do you remember how glum he looked that night at ‘The Peace’? but I don’t believe he’d have proposed to her ten days later. She might have liked me much better when she came to know me--mightn’t she? and I would have read history and grammar, and Latin and Greek, and that, and made myself a scholar for her sake. I can’t help feeling it, Major, and that’s the truth. She’s the only woman I ever really cared for; and what have I to live for now?” Then it was that D’Orville showed himself an altered man--then it was that the thoughts which had first flashed across him when he contemplated self-destruction, and had since been progressively developing themselves on a bed of sickness, bore their fruit, as such thoughts will sooner or later where a man has a heart to feel or a brain to reason. He explained to Lacquers the views he now entertained of life, its duties, and its charms--how different from those on which he had hitherto acted! He pointed out to him the utter insufficiency of everything on earth to constitute happiness, when unconnected with a grand object and a future state of being. He talked well, for he was in earnest; and he reasoned closely, for his was a penetrating intellect, ever ready to strip at a moment’s notice the illusive from the real. He had all his life been an acute man--saw through a fallacy in an instant, and, to do him justice, never hesitated to expose it: “Called knavery, knavery--and a lie, a lie.” Such a mind, when convinced of truth, is doubly strong; and Lacquers listened, much admiring, though, it must be confessed, not always quite understanding the deductions of his mentor. Yet was he too, ere long, stirred with a noble ambition, a desire to fulfil his destiny in life with some credit to himself and benefit to his fellow-creatures--a longing to be useful in his generation--to feel that he was part of the great scheme, and, however humble might be his task, yet that its fulfilment was a fair condition of his very existence, and was conducive to the well-being of the whole.