e two days he sat
alone within the house, almost unoccupied. He did not even open his
letters, which lay piled on a crowded table in the small breakfast
parlour in which he sat; for the letters of such men come in piles,
and there are few of them which are pleasant in the reading. There
he sat, troubled with thoughts which were sad enough, now and then
moving to and fro the house, but for the most part occupied in
thinking over the position to which he had brought himself. What
would he be in the world's eye, if he ceased to be the owner of
Chaldicotes, and ceased also to be the member for his county? He
had lived ever before the world, and, though always harassed by
encumbrances, had been sustained and comforted by the excitement of
a prominent position. His debts and difficulties had hitherto been
bearable, and he had borne them with ease so long that he had almost
taught himself to think that they would never be unendurable. But
now--

The order for foreclosing had gone forth, and the harpies of the law,
by their present speed in sticking their claws into the carcass of
his property, were atoning to themselves for the delay with which
they had hitherto been compelled to approach their prey. And the
order as to his seat had gone forth also. That placard had been drawn
up by the combined efforts of his sister, Miss Dunstable, and a
certain well-known electioneering agent, named Closerstill, presumed
to be in the interest of the giants. But poor Sowerby had but little
confidence in the placard. No one knew better than he how great was
the duke's power. He was hopeless, therefore, as he walked about
through those empty rooms, thinking of his past life and of that life
which was to come. Would it not be well for him that he were dead,
now that he was dying to all that had made the world pleasant? We see
and hear of such men as Mr. Sowerby, and are apt to think that they
enjoy all that the world can give, and that they enjoy that all
without payment either in care or labour; but I doubt that, with
even the most callous of them, their periods of wretchedness must
be frequent, and that wretchedness very intense. Salmon and lamb in
February, and green pease and new potatoes in March, can hardly make
a man happy, even though nobody pays for them; and the feeling that
one is an _antecedentem scelestum_ after whom a sure, though lame,
Nemesis is hobbling, must sometimes disturb one's slumbers. On the
present occasion Scelestus