een a rich man, my experience of Paris tells me that I
should most likely have been a very idle one. Now that I have no gold, I
must dig in myself for iron."

The man to whom he said this was an uncle-in-law,--if I may use that
phrase,--the Right Hon. Richard King, popularly styled "the blameless
King."

This gentleman had married the sister of Graham's mother, whose loss in
his infancy and boyhood she had tenderly and anxiously sought to supply.
It is impossible to conceive a woman more fitted to invite love and
reverence than was Lady Janet King, her manners were so sweet and
gentle, her whole nature so elevated and pure.

Her father had succeeded to the dukedom when she married Mr. King, and
the alliance was not deemed quite suitable. Still it was not one to
which the Duke would have been fairly justified in refusing his assent.

Mr. King could not indeed boast of noble ancestry, nor was even a landed
proprietor; but he was a not-undistinguished member of Parliament, of
irreproachable character, and ample fortune inherited from a distant
kinsman, who had enriched himself as a merchant. It was on both sides a
marriage of love.

It is popularly said that a man uplifts a wife to his own rank: it as
often happens that a woman uplifts her husband to the dignity of her
own character. Richard King rose greatly in public estimation after his
marriage with Lady Janet.

She united to a sincere piety a very active and a very enlightened
benevolence. She guided his ambition aside from mere party politics into
subjects of social and religious interest, and in devoting himself to
these he achieved a position more popular and more respected than he
could ever have won in the strife of party.

When the Government of which the elder Vane became a leading Minister
was formed, it was considered a great object to secure a name as high
in the religious world, so beloved by the working classes, as that of
Richard King; and he accepted one of those places which, though not in
the cabinet, confers the rank of Privy Councillor.

When that brief-lived Administration ceased, he felt the same sensation
of relief that Vane had felt, and came to the same resolution never
again to accept office, but from different reasons, all of which need
not now be detailed. Amongst them, however, certainly this: he was
exceedingly sensitive to opinion, thin-skinned as to abuse, and very
tenacious of the respect due to his peculiar character of sanctit