Some one who could give her rank, wealth, whatever heart could desire----! Poor Laurie’s heart contracted with a sudden pang, and forced the moisture to his eyes. He was only four-and-twenty, poor fellow! But it was to be so. Not his the force or the passion to resist fate. It was one of the might-have-beens which gave so strange, so shadowy a character to this existence. Strange to stand amid the unalterable laws of nature and see what caprice moves the fate of the chief of nature’s works. If Aunt Lydia had held her peace! If Mr. Renton had not changed his mind! We are such stuff as dreams are made of! Laurie said to himself as he turned from the scentless China asters in his window and the empty Park, and this concluded phase of life. But still things might have been worse. This overthrow might have happened a year ago, at the moment when Laurie had pledged all his credit, and given all his money to Geoffrey Sutton,--poor old fellow!--after the brigands sacked his little villa up on Lake Nemi, and took everything he had in the world. When old Geoff was going about, wild and penniless, girt round with pistols, to revenge his loss, without thinking that his life might go instead of Masaccio’s, and that nobody would be left to pay his friends at home! What a business it would have been had this happened then! But in the meantime Geoff’s old uncle had been so obliging as to die, and all was right again. Or had it occurred that time when Laurie took his last twenty pounds out of the bank to send Harry Wood to Rome to nurse his lungs and pursue his studies! Fortunately at this moment there was nothing in hand to make matters worse than they were by nature, which Laurie reflected was the greatest good luck,--a chance which he scarcely deserved, imprudent as he was. So that on the whole, except for the necessity of leaving Kensington Gore, it would not make much difference. That he should feel a little, of course;--everything was so handy, so nice, so bright, and Mrs. Brown understood his ways. But after all, what did it matter where a man lived? A good light to paint by, any sort of a clean room to sleep in, and a friendly face now and then to look in upon his work. Of that last particular he was always certain. Indeed, Laurie was fully aware that among his artist friends he was likely to be rather more than less popular when he ceased to be a ‘swell’ and amateur.