“There was some talk, too, of his being sent on a special embassy to Paris,--a very high and important trust,--and so really the affliction is aggravated by thinking what a career was opening to him. But, as the Dean of Walworth beautifully expressed it, 'We are cut down like flowers of the field.' Ah!” A sigh and a slight wave with a handkerchief, diffusing an odor of eau-de-Portugal through the chamber, closed this affecting sentiment. “I trust in a day or two I shall be able to see my mother,” said Forester, whose thoughts were following a far more natural channel. “I can walk a little to-day, and before the end of the week Halford promises me that I shall drive out.” “That 's the very point we are most anxious about,” said Lord Netherby, eagerly: “we want you, if possible, to take your seat in 'the Lords' next week. There is a special reason for it. Rumor runs that the Egyptian expedition will be brought on for discussion on Thursday next. Some malcontents are about to disparage the whole business, and, in particular, the affair at Alexandria. Ministers are strong enough to resist this attack, and even carry the war back into the enemy's camp; but we all think it would be a most fortunate moment for you, when making your first appearance in the House, to rise and say a few words on the subject of the campaign. The circumstances under which you joined--your very dangerous wound--have given you a kind of prerogative to speak, and the occasion is most opportune. Come, what say you? Would such an effort be too great?” “Certainly not for my strength, my Lord, if not for my shame' sake; for really I should feel it somewhat presumptuous in me, a man who carried his musket in the ranks, to venture on a discussion, far more a defence, of the great operations in which he was a mere unit; one of those rank and file who figured, without other designation, in lists of killed and wounded.” “This is very creditable to your modesty, my dear Lord,” said the old peer, smiling most blandly; “but pardon me if I say it displays a great forgetfulness of your present position. Remember that you now belong to the Upper House, and that the light of the peerage shines on the past as on the future.” “By which I am to understand,” replied Forester, laughing, “that the events which would have met a merited oblivion in Dick Forester's life are to be remembered with honor to the Earl of Wallincourt.” “Of course they are,” cried Lord Netherby, joining in the laugh. “If an unlikely scion of royalty ascends the throne, we look out for the evidences of his princely tastes in the sports of his boyhood. Nay, if a clever writer or painter wins distinction from the world, do we not 'try back' for his triumphs at school, or his chalk sketches on coach-house gates, to warrant the early development of genius?”