nd never to ride them!

Your most affectionate Son,

SILVERBRIDGE.

The last sentence gave rise in the Duke's mind to the necessity of a
very elaborate memorandum on the subject of amusements generally.

By the same post another letter went from Polpenno to Matching which
also gave rise to some mental memoranda. It was as follows:

MY DEAR MABEL,

I am a Member of the British House of Commons! I have
sometimes regarded myself as being one of the most
peculiarly unfortunate men in the world, and yet now I
have achieved that which all commoners in England think to
be the greatest honour within their reach, and have done
so at an age at which very few achieve it but the sons of
the wealthy and the powerful.

I now come to my misfortunes. I know that as a poor man
I ought not to be a member of Parliament. I ought to
be earning my bread as a lawyer or a doctor. I have no
business to be what I am, and when I am forty I shall find
that I have eaten up all my good things instead of having
them to eat.

I have one chance before me. You know very well what that
is. Tell her that my pride in being a member of Parliament
is much more on her behalf than on my own. The man who
dares to love her ought at any rate to be something in the
world. If it might be,--if ever it may be,--I should wish
to be something for her sake. I am sure you will be glad
of my success yourself, for my own sake.

Your affectionate Friend and Cousin,

FRANCIS TREGEAR.

The first mental memorandum in regard to this came from the writer's
assertion that he at forty would have eaten up all his good things.
No! He being a man might make his way to good things though he was
not born to them. He surely would win his good things for himself.
But what good things were in store for her? What chance of success
was there for her? But the reflection which was the most bitter to
her of all came from her assurance that his love for that other
girl was so genuine. Even when he was writing to her there was no
spark left of the old romance! Some hint of a recollection of past
feelings, some half-concealed reference to the former passion might
have been allowed to him! She as a woman,--as a woman all whose
fortune must depend on marriage,--could indulge in no such allusions;
but surely he need not have been so hard!

But still there was another memorandum. At the present moment s