It was just like King Charles to give away a diamond buckle, when neither he nor his suite had money to pay for necessaries. Robin Featherstone stepped back into the crowd, where he was pretty well hustled and pushed about before he regained his horse; but he managed to keep fast hold of the money and the diamond clasp. He was rather troubled what to do with them. The jewel had so pointedly been intended for Jenny, that he could scarcely help dealing rightly in that instance; but the division of the money was not so clear. A man who was just and generous would have given the sovereign to Fortune, and have kept the half-louis (worth about 8 shillings 6 pence) for himself; but Feathers tone was not generous, and not particularly anxious to be just. The portion to be appropriated to Fortune dwindled in his thoughts, until it reached half-a-crown, and there for very shame's sake it stayed. "And why not?" demanded Mr Featherstone of his conscience, when it made a feeble remonstrance. "Did not His Majesty say, `Divide it as thou list'? Pray who am I, that I am not to obey His Majesty?" Had His Majesty's order been a little less in accordance with his own inclinations, perhaps Mr Featherstone would not have found it so incumbent on him to obey it. It is astonishing how easy a virtue becomes when it runs alongside a man's interest and choice. Featherstone had never learned self-denial; and that is a virtue nearly as hard to exercise without practice as it would be to play a tune on a musical instrument which the player had never handled before. In that wonderful allegory, the _Holy War_--which is less read than its companion, the _Pilgrim's Progress_, but deserves it quite as much-- Bunyan represents Self-Denial as a plain citizen of Mansoul, of whom Prince Immanuel made first a captain, and then a lord. But he would never have been selected for either honour, if he had not first done his unobtrusive duty as a quiet citizen. Self-denial and self-control are not commonly admired virtues just now. Yet he is a very poor man who has not these most valuable possessions. Robin Featherstone stayed with the Colonel just as long as it suited himself, and until he had exhausted such pleasures as he could have in Paris without knowing a word of the French language, which he was too lazy to learn. What a vast amount of good, not to speak of pleasure, men lose by laziness! When this point was reached, Featherstone told the Colonel that he wished to return to England; and Colonel Lane, who, happily for himself, was not lazy, set things in train, and procured for Robert a passage to England in the service of a gentleman who was going home.