; and it is the future which is chiefly in debt to
us, and adjures us for its sake to fight the fight and conquer. That man
is vile and fit to be trampled on who cannot count his future in gold and
victory. If, as we find, we are always in debt to the past, we should
determine that the future is in our debt, and draw on it. Why let our
future lie idle while we need succour? For instance, to-morrow I am to
have what saves my reputation in the battle to-day; shall I not take it
at once? The military commander who acts on that principle overcomes his
adversary to a certainty.

'You, Richie, the member for this borough of Chippenden, have won solid
ground. I guarantee it to you. And you go straight from the hustings, or
the first taste of parliamentary benches, to Sarkeld: you take your
grandad's proposition to Prince Ernest: you bring back the prince's
acceptance to the squire. Can you hope to have a princess without a
battle for her?' More and much more in this strain, until--for he could
read me and most human beings swiftly on the surface, notwithstanding the
pressure of his fancifulness--he perceived that talking influenced me far
less than activity, and so after a hurried breakfast and an innocuous
glance at the damp morning papers, we started to the money-lender's, with
Jennings to lend his name. We were in Chippenden close upon the hour my
father had named, bringing to the startled electors the first news of
their member's death.

During the heat of the canvass for votes I received a kind letter from
the squire in reply to one of mine, wherein he congratulated me on my
prospects of success, and wound up: 'Glad to see it announced you are off
with that princess of yours. Show them we are as proud as they are,
Harry, and a fig for the whole foreign lot! Come to Riversley soon, and
be happy.' What did that mean? Heriot likewise said in a letter: 'So it's
over? The proud prince kicks? You will not thank me for telling you now
what you know I think about it.' I appealed to my father. 'Canvass!
canvass!' cried he; and he persistently baffled me. It was from Temple I
learnt that on the day of our starting for Chippenden, the newspapers
contained a paragraph in large print flatly denying upon authority that
there was any foundation for the report of an intended marriage between
the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld and an English gentleman. Then I
remembered how that morning my father had flung the papers down,
complaining o