ndow, and rattling
away with her usual vivacity, while she divided her attention with the
labours of knitting a purse.

"Heaven only knows," said Saville, "what all these times will produce.
I lose my head in the dizzy quickness of events. Fanny, hand me my
snuff-box. Well, I fancy my last hour is not far distant; but I hope, at
least, I shall die a gentleman. I have a great dislike to the thought of
being revolutionised into a roturier. That's the only kind of revolution
I have any notion about. What do you say to all this, Godolphin? Every
one else is turning politician; young Sunderland whirls his cab down to
the House at four o'clock every day--dines at Bellamy's on cold beef;
and talks of nothing but that d----d good speech of Sir Robert's'.
Revolution! faith, the revolution is come already. Revolutions only
change the aspect of society, is it not changed enough within the last
six months? Bah! I suppose you are bit by the mania?"

"Not I! while I live I will abjure the vulgar toil of ambition. Let
others rule or ruin the state;--like the Duc de Lauzun, while the
guillotine is preparing, I will think only of my oysters and my
champagne."

"A noble creed!" said Fanny, smiling: "let the world go to wreck, and
bring me my biscuit! That's Godolphin's motto."

"It is life's motto."

"Yes--a gentleman's life."

"Pish! Fanny; no satire from you: you, who are not properly speaking
even a tragic actress! But there is something about your profession
sublimely picturesque in the midst of these noisy brawls. The storms
of nations shake not the stage; you are wrapt in another life; the
atmosphere of poetry girds you. You are like the fairies who lived among
men, visible only at night, and playing their fantastic tricks amidst
the surrounding passions--the sorrow, the crime, the avarice, the love,
the wrath, the luxury, the famine, that belong to the grosser dwellers
of the earth. You are to be envied, Fanny."

"Not so; I am growing old."

"Old!" cried Saville: "Ah, talk not of it! Ugh!--Ugh! Curse this cough!
But hang politics; it always brings disagreeable reflections. Glad, my
old pupil,--glad am I to see that you still retain your august contempt
for these foolish strugglers--insects splashing and panting in the vast
stream of events, which they scarcely stir, and in which they scarcely
drop before they are drowned--"

"Or the fishes, their passions, devour them," said Godolphin.

"News!" cried Saville; "let us