o not expect that I shall be more wretched than other poor
devils around me. As far as my idea goes, it all makes very little
difference. Now leave me; there's a good fellow."

"Dear old fellow, I would give my right hand if it would make you
happy!"

"But it won't. Your right hand will make somebody else happy, I
hope."

"I'll come up to you again before dinner."

"Very well. And, Staveley, what we have now said cannot be forgotten
between us; but when we next meet, and ever after, let it be as
though it were forgotten." Then he settled himself down on the bed,
and Augustus left the room.

It will not be supposed that Graham did go to sleep, or that he had
any thought of doing so. When he was alone those words of his friend
rang over and over again in his ears, "No girl ought to be out of
your reach." Why should Madeline Staveley be out of his reach, simply
because she was his friend's sister? He had been made welcome to that
house, and therefore he was bound to do nothing unhandsome by the
family. But then he was bound by other laws, equally clear, to do
nothing unhandsome by any other family--or by any other lady. If
there was anything in Staveley's words, they applied as strongly to
Staveley's sister as to any other girl. And why should not he, a
lawyer, marry a lawyer's daughter? Sophia Furnival, with her hatful
of money, would not be considered too high for him; and in what
respect was Madeline Staveley above Sophia Furnival? That the one
was immeasurably above the other in all those respects which in his
estimation tended towards female perfection, he knew to be true
enough; but the fruit which he had been forbidden to gather hung no
higher on the social tree than that other fruit which he had been
specially invited to pluck and garner.

And then Graham was not a man to think any fruit too high for him.
He had no overweening idea of his own deserts, either socially or
professionally, nor had he taught himself to expect great things from
his own genius; but he had that audacity of spirit which bids a man
hope to compass that which he wishes to compass,--that audacity which
is both the father and mother of success,--that audacity which seldom
exists without the inner capability on which it ought to rest.

But then there was Mary Snow! Augustus Staveley thought but little of
Mary Snow. According to his theory of his friend's future life, Mary
Snow might be laid aside without much difficulty. If this were so