cribes, with fine descriptive
touches, the wealth other men have accumulated in that Eldorado of the
South. John goes home with a notion at the back of his head that he too
would like to try his luck there. The idea grows and flourishes.
Eventually he sets sail for the Antipodes, and for upwards of thirty
years nothing more is heard of him. When he returns to England after
this long lapse of time he is several times a millionaire, and in a
position to purchase half the country-side, which he promptly does. He
plumes himself upon his shrewdness, and talks of his business capacity
to his fellow-justices! He quite forgets, however, that, had it not been
for that chance visit to old Matthew's house that sunny Sunday
afternoon, and the letter that was read to him there, he might still be
planing at his bench, a poorer and, in every respect, a humbler man. And
so, gentle reader, I venture to suggest, it is with all of us. However
we may be born, whatever may come to us from other people, there is
always one little chance permitted us, and according as we seize it or
neglect it, so it will make or mar our lives. Mine came to me in a quite
unexpected fashion, and I must leave you to discover for yourselves in
what manner I treated it, and what befell me and mine in consequence.

It has been popularly supposed that Her Majesty's Household Troops have
no other occupation in life than to act as escorts to Royal carriages,
to take part in public processions, and to sit like statues upon their
chargers, in the pigeon-houses that ornament the front of the Horse
Guards. A certain popular novelist has gone further, and has accused
their officers of being as luxuriously housed as young duchesses, of
breaking the hearts of beautiful ladies-in-waiting, and of committing
various other petty sins, very charming no doubt in themselves, but much
too improper for me to mention here. However that may be, I am prepared
to state that my military duties were of a somewhat more arduous nature.
Relaxations there were, it is true, and of the most pleasant
description; and he would have been hard indeed to satisfy who could
have been discontented with them. Nevertheless, the fact remains that
our lives were not so easy as many people are wont to declare.

Despite a certain witty diplomatist's assertion that Paris is
pre-eminently "the city of pretty women, while London is that of
immaculate wives," I am prepared to contend that never in any other part