We are a wealthy nation, the political economist tells the poor man, and our superfluous wealth must find employment somehow or other. Hench the crush of high-stepping horses, the crowd of three-hundred-guinea barouches; the flutter of costly garments rustling in the summer air, the glitter and splendour which pervades every object, until it seems almost as if the superfluous gold were melted into the atmosphere, and all the female population were so many Miss Kilmanseggs. The lounger on the rails may for the moment find it almost difficult to believe that hungry women and gaunt haggard-looking men can have any place in the world of which this dazzling region is a part: but he need only look backward, under the shadow of the trees, to see poverty and crime prowling side by side in their rags. Yet at the worst, the dazzle and the glitter are good for trade; and it is better that the tide of wealth should be rolling to and fro along the Lady's Mile than locked in a miser's coffers or given in alms to professional beggars at a church-door. Some part of the superfluous gold must pass through the horny hands of labour before it can be transmuted into C-springs or patent axles, Honiton lace or Spitalfields silk; and perhaps the safest of all philosophy is that which accepts the doctrine that "whatever is, is right." But amongst the loungers on the rails this summer evening there was one person stationed with his companion some little distance from the rest of the idlers, who was very much inclined to quarrel with this easy-going axiom, or with any other sentiment that involved contentment. The eyes with which Philip Foley contemplated the world were young, and rather handsome eyes; but they saw every thing in a jaundiced light just now. He was a painter, self-contained and ambitious as a disciple of art should be. But he had not yet learnt the sublime patience of the faithful disciple; and he was angry with Fortune because she hid her face; forgetful that if she is a churlish mother, she can also be an over-indulgent one, and sometimes destroys her fairest favourites by smiling upon them too soon. Philip Foley was in love, and the girl he loved was the most capricious little enchantress who ever studied the prettiest method of breaking her adorers' hearts. The summer light which should have shone upon the back of his shabby painting-jacket, as he stood before his easel, dazzled his eyes as he looked along the Lady's Mile, seeking her carriage among the crowd. "I say, Foley, old fellow, when are you coming out of this, eh?" demanded Sigismund Smythe, the novelist, who had abandoned the penny public to court the favour of circulating-library subscribers, and had sublimated the vulgar Smith into the aristocratic Smythe. Mr. Smythe the author and Mr. Foley the painter were sworn friends; and the placid Sigismund was recreating himself after a day's hard labour on the "Testimony" of his latest hero, "Written in the Hulks." "Out of which?"