To him there was no hot, feverish ambition prompting him to grasp joyously the absolute command of his great heritage. In his heart there was none of that fierce yet sordid avarice which finds compensation for the loss of the scarce-lamented dead in the severance of the dearest natural bonds, in the possession of wealth, or the promise of power. Nor was this all, for, in truth, so well had Raoul de Douarnez been brought up, and so completely had wisdom grown up with his growth, that when, at the age of nineteen years, he found himself endowed with the rank and revenues of one of the highest and wealthiest peers of France, and in all but mere name his own master--for the Abbe de Chastellar, his mother's brother, who had been appointed his guardian by his father's will, scarcely attempted to exercise even a nominal jurisdiction over him--he felt himself more than ever at a loss, deprived as he was, when he most needed it, of his best natural counsellor; and instead of rejoicing, was more than half inclined to lament over the almost absolute self-control with which he found himself invested. Young hearts are naturally true themselves, and prone to put trust in others; and it is rarely, except in a few dark and morose and gloomy natures, which are exceptions to the rule and standard of human nature, that man learns to be distrustful and suspicious of his kind, even after experience of fickleness and falsehood may have in some sort justified suspicions, until his head has grown gray. And this in an eminent degree was the case with Raoul de St. Renan, for henceforth he must be called by the title which his altered state had conferred upon him. His natural disposition was as trustful and unsuspicious as it was artless and ingenuous; and from his early youth all the lessons which had been taught him by his parents tended to preserve in him unblemished and unbroken that bright gem, which once shattered never can be restored, confidence in the truth, the probity, the goodness of mankind. Some ruder schooling he had met in the course of his service in the eastern world--he had already learned that men, and--harder knowledge yet to gain--women also, can feign friendship, ay, and love, where neither have the least root in the heart, for purposes the vilest, ends the most sordid. He had learned that bosom friends can be secret foes; that false loves can betray; and yet he was not disenchanted with humanity, he had not even dreamed of doubting, because he had fallen among worldly-minded flatterers and fickle-hearted coquettes, that absolute friendship and unchangeable love may exist, even in this evil world, stainless and incorruptible among all the changes and chances of this mortal life.