God knows.'

The colonel looked at Lancelot with one of those kindly thoughtful
smiles, which came over him whenever his better child's heart could
bubble up through the thick crust of worldliness.

'My young friend, you have been a little too much on the stilts
heretofore. Take care that, now you are off them, you don't lie
down and sleep, instead of walking honestly on your legs. Have
faith in yourself; pick these men's brains, and all men's. You can
do it. Say to yourself boldly, as the false prophet in India said
to the missionary, "I have fire enough in my stomach to burn up" a
dozen stucco and filigree reformers and "assimilate their ashes into
the bargain, like one of Liebig's cabbages."'

'How can I have faith in myself, when I am playing traitor to myself
every hour in the day? And yet faith in something I must have: in
woman, perhaps.'

'Never!' said the colonel, energetically. 'In anything but woman?
She must be led, not leader. If you love a woman, make her have
faith in you. If you lean on her, you will ruin yourself, and her
as well.'

Lancelot shook his head. There was a pause.

'After all, colonel, I think there must be a meaning in those old
words our mothers used to teach us about "having faith in God."'

The colonel shrugged his shoulders.

'Quien sabe? said the Spanish girl, when they asked her who was her
child's father. But here comes my kit on a clod's back, and it is
time to dress for dinner.'

So to the dinner-party they went.

Lord Minchampstead was one of the few noblemen Lancelot had ever met
who had aroused in him a thorough feeling of respect. He was always
and in all things a strong man. Naturally keen, ready, business-
like, daring, he had carved out his own way through life, and opened
his oyster--the world, neither with sword nor pen, but with steam
and cotton. His father was Mr. Obadiah Newbroom, of the well-known
manufacturing firm of Newbroom, Stag, and Playforall. A stanch
Dissenter himself, he saw with a slight pang his son Thomas turn
Churchman, as soon as the young man had worked his way up to be the
real head of the firm. But this was the only sorrow which Thomas
Newbroom, now Lord Minchampstead, had ever given his father. 'I
stood behind a loom myself, my boy, when I began life; and you must
do with great means what I did with little ones. I have made a
gentleman of you, you must make a nobleman of yourself.' Thos