"Upon my life, so you do!" he averred.--"But be satisfied!--you are in this respect very like many another Croesus. It is only the poor and proud who take the trouble to dress well,--they and the dear 'naughty' ladies, generally monopolize tasteful and becoming attire. An ill-fitting coat often adorns the back of a Prime Minister,--and if you see a woman clad in clothes vilely cut and coloured, you may be sure she is eminently virtuous, renowned for good works, and probably a duchess!" He rose, drawing his sables about him. "What matter the coat if the purse be full!" he continued gaily.--"Let it once be properly paragraphed in the papers that you are a millionaire, and doubtless some enterprising tailor will invent a 'Tempest' ulster coloured softly like your present garb, an artistic mildewy green! And now come along,--your solicitor's communication should have given you a good appetite, or it is not so valuable as it seems,--and I want you to do justice to my supper. I have my own _chef_ with me, and he is not without skill. I hope, by the way, you will at least do me this much service,--that pending legal discussion and settlement of your affairs, you will let me be your banker?" This offer was made with such an air of courteous delicacy and friendship, that I could do no more than accept it gratefully, as it relieved me from all temporary embarrassment. I hastily wrote a few lines to my landlady, telling her she would receive the money owing to her by post next day,--then, thrusting my rejected manuscript, my only worldly possession, into my coat-pocket, I extinguished the lamp, and with the new friend I had so suddenly gained, I left my dismal lodgings and all its miserable associations for ever. I little thought the time would come when I should look back to the time spent in that small mean room as the best period of my life,--when I should regard the bitter poverty I then endured, as the stern but holy angel meant to guide me to the highest and noblest attainment,--when I should pray desperately with wild tears to be as I was then, rather than as I am now! Is it well or ill for us I wonder, that the future is hidden from our knowledge? Should we steer our ways clearer from evil if we knew its result? It is a doubtful question,--at anyrate my ignorance for the moment was indeed bliss. I went joyfully out of the dreary house where I had lived so long among disappointments and difficulties, turning my back upon it with such a sense of relief as could never be expressed in words,--and the last thing I heard as I passed into the street with my companion, was a plaintive long-drawn wail of minor melody, which seemed to be sent after me like a parting cry, by the unknown and invisible player of the violin. IV