elcome that met him was almost
cordial. Lord Danesbury--not very demonstrative at any time--received him
with warmth, and Lady Maude gave him her hand with a sort of significant
cordiality that overwhelmed him with delight. The climax of his enjoyment
was, however, reached when Lord Danesbury said to him, 'We are glad to see
you at home again.'

This speech sank deep into his heart, and he never wearied of repeating it
over and over to himself. When he reached his room, where his luggage had
already preceded him, and found his dressing articles laid out, and all the
little cares and attentions which well-trained servants understand awaiting
him, he muttered, with a tremulous sort of ecstasy, 'This is a very
glorious way to come home!'

The rich furniture of the room, the many appliances of luxury and ease
around him, the sense of rest and quiet, so delightful after a journey, all
appealed to him as he threw himself into a deep-cushioned chair. He cried
aloud, 'Home! home! Is this indeed home? What a different thing from that
mean life of privation and penury I have always been associating with this
word--from that perpetual struggle with debt--the miserable conflict that
went on through every day, till not an action, not a thought, remained
untinctured with money, and if a momentary pleasure crossed the path, the
cost of it as certain to tarnish all the enjoyment! Such was the only home
I have ever known, or indeed imagined.'

It is said that the men who have emerged from very humble conditions in
life, and occupy places of eminence or promise, are less overjoyed at this
change of fortune than impressed with a kind of resentment towards the
destiny that once had subjected them to privation. Their feeling is not so
much joy at the present as discontent with the past.

'Why was I not born to all this?' cried Atlee indignantly. 'What is there
in me, or in my nature, that this should be a usurpation? Why was I not
schooled at Eton, and trained at Oxford? Why was I not bred up amongst the
men whose competitor I shall soon find myself? Why have I not their
ways, their instincts, their watchwords, their pastimes, and even their
prejudices, as parts of my very nature? Why am I to learn these late in
life, as a man learns a new language, and never fully catches the sounds or
the niceties? Is there any competitorship I should flinch from, any rivalry
I should fear, if I had but started fair in the race?'

This sense of having