"When I was one-and-twenty, there seemed reason to believe in a partnership in my masters' firm--my masters took a fancy to me when I was a lad, and very much obliged to them I was for it. By that hope in prospective," suddenly turning to Harriet Wesden, and leaning over the table towards her with a very anxious look upon his face, "I was led, Harriet, to think too much of you--to enter into a half-engagement, or a whole one, or a something that kept me ever thinking of you, hoping for you. When I was one-and-twenty, I was to come to your father, and say, 'I am in a good position of life--may I consider Harriet as my future wife?'--he was to refer me to you if satisfied with my prospects, and you were--well, I did hope very much that you were then to say, 'Yes' in real earnest. All this, a pretty story, foolish for me to believe in--but a story ended now in an ugly fashion. Mr. Wesden," veering suddenly round to the stationer, "my prospects in life are infamously bad; my employers are bankrupts, and my services will not be required after this day month!" Mr. Hinchford flung himself back in his chair with a crash that brought the top rail off,--Sidney turned at once to him, and laid his hand upon his arm. "With my father to give me courage, I can bear this!" "That's--that's--that's well, my lad. Keep strong--oh! Lord have mercy upon us!--keep strong, my boy!" "I have been fighting hard to get the firm straight--I have been abroad to the foreign branch, working night and day there, my last chance and my employer's. I had a hope once of success, till the markets fell suddenly, and swamped everything--our weakness could not stand against anything new and unforeseen, and so we--_smashed_! It will be all over town to-morrow--but it was a good fight whilst it lasted." "It's very unfortunate news," said Mr. Wesden. "I'm not afraid for myself," said Sidney, proudly; "I think that with time, and health--ah! I must not forget that--I shall work my way somewhere, and to something in good time. But I shan't climb to greatness all of a sudden; and it may happen that at forty--even fifty years of age--I may be no better off than I am now. That I'm disappointed is natural enough, for I know money's value, and perhaps it was a little too near my heart, and this is my lesson; but the disappointment of losing you, Harriet--of giving up that chance, as any honourable man should--is the one loss which staggers me, and will be the hardest to surmount. I thought that I would make a clean breast of it, and begin my one-and-twentieth year free, as land-agents say, of all encumbrances." It was a poor attempt at _facetiæ_--a very weak effort to carry things off with a high hand, like a Hinchford. But he played his part well; he did not break down; he confessed his inability to keep a wife, or think of a wife, and he spoke out like one who had reached man's estate, and felt strong to bear man's troubles.