"One night, when we had been talking of these things, Dr. Winthorne laid his hand upon my shoulder, saying, 'Ned, you must make yourself a name and an estate. There are two courses before you: either pursue your studies vigorously for a few years, and then go to the university and push your fortunes in the Church or at the bar, or put yourself in the way of another sort of advancement, and mingle in the strife of courts and camps. You have talent for the one if you choose to embrace it; your animal qualities may fit you for the other. If the latter be your choice, among my noble kinsfolks I can put you on the entrance of the road; but you are not a boy who can remain idle. Think over it till to-morrow at this hour; and then tell me of your resolve.' "My determination was soon formed. I could not make up my mind, especially with the feelings that were then busy in me, to devote myself to mere dry and thoughtful studies; and I chose the more active scenes. The very next night Dr. Winthorne wrote to the Lord Montagu, distantly related to his mother, and in about two months after I received the appointment of gentleman-page in his household, the only path now open in England to honor and renown. In this career I have met with many vicissitudes, and have learned much in a harsher and sterner school than that of good Dr. Winthorne. I have not suffered, I trust, in mind or in body, and, if my character has been hardened, I do believe the change took place, not in the four last years of action and endeavor, but in the few months of suffering and endurance which immediately preceded and followed my father's death. Let it not be thought, my excellent friend, that in any thing I have said I wished to cast a reproach upon his memory. I am sure that he intended to secure to me what by right and equity was mine, whatever mere law may say; but probably the duel in which he fell was hasty; and it was a habit of his mind to put off both consideration and action as long as he could. Thought was a labor that troubled him, and he often would not see dangers because reflection upon the best way of meeting them would have been painful. As to my brother, I have never seen him again: I hear he has returned to Italy, there to spend what remains to him of his wealth. Thus, you see that, though that cup is mine by right, it is no more mine by law than the estate of Buckley, which has gone from me forever."