utes, resumed in a voice whose accents
were full and well weighed: 'When men have agreed together to support
the cause of one they call a Pretender, they ever seem to me to make a
sort of compromise with themselves, and insist that he who is to be a
royalty to all others, invested with every right and due of majesty,
must be to them a plaything and a toy; and then they gather around him
with fears, and threats, and hopes, and flatteries--now menacing, now
bribing--forgetting the while that if fortune should ever destine such
a man to have a throne, they will have so corrupted and debased his
nature, while waiting for it, that not one fitting quality, not one
rightful trait would remain to him. If history has not taught me
wrongly, even usurpers have shown more kingly conduct than restored
monarchs.'

'What would you, Prince?' said the Cardinal sorrowfully. 'We must accept
the world as we find it.'

'Say, rather, as we make it.'

The Cardinal rose to take his leave, but evidently wishing that Gerald
might say something to detain him. He was very reluctant to leave the
young man to ponder in solitude such sentiments as he had avowed.

'Good-night, sir, good-night. Your Eminence will explain my absence, and
say that I will receive these gentlemen tomorrow. What are the papers
you hold in your hand--are they for _me_?'

'They are some mere routine matters, which your Royal Highness may look
over at leisure--appointments to certain benefices, on which it has been
the custom to take the pleasure of the Prince your father; but they are
not pressing; another time will do equally well.'

There was an adroitness in this that showed how closely his Eminence
had studied the Stuart nature, and marked that no flattery was ever
so successful with that house as that which implied their readiness to
sacrifice time, pleasure, inclination, even health itself to the cares
and duties of station. To this blandishment they were never averse or
inaccessible, and Gerald inherited the trait in all its strength.

'Let me see them, sir,' said Gerald, seating himself at the table, while
he gave a deep sigh--fitting testimony of his sense of sacrifice.

'This is the nomination of John Decloraine Hackett to the see of Elphin;
an excellent priest, and a sound politician. He has ever contrived to
impress the world so powerfully with his religious devotion, that there
are not twelve men in Europe know him to be the craftiest statesman of
his ti