opposition, and the jaunting back and forward to Brighton or to
Windsor!"

While he muttered these complaints, he continued to read with great
rapidity the letters which Stanhope had brought him, and which, despite
all his practised coolness, had evidently afforded him pleasure in the
perusal.

"Adderley bore it," continued he, "just because he was a mere machine,
wound up to play off so many despatches, like so many tunes; and then,
he permitted a degree of interference on the King's part I never could
have suffered; and he liked to be addressed by the King of Prussia as
'Dear Adderley.' But what do I care for all these vanities? Have I not
seen enough of the thing they call the great world? Is not this retreat
better and dearer to me than all the glare and crash of London, or all
the pomp and splendor of Windsor?"

"By Jove! I suspect you are right, after all," said Harcourt, with an
honest energy of voice.

"Were I younger, and stronger in health, perhaps," said Upton, "this
might have tempted me. Perhaps I can picture to myself what I might
have made of it; for you may perceive, George, these people have done
nothing: they have been pouring hot water on the tea-leaves Pitt left
them,--no more."

"And you 'd have a brewing of your own, I 've no doubt," responded the
other.

"I'd at least have foreseen the time when this compact, this Holy
Alliance, should become impossible; when the developed intelligence of
Europe would seek something else from their rulers than a well-concocted
scheme of repression. I 'd have provided for the hour when England
must either break with her own people or her allies; and I 'd have
inaugurated a new policy, based upon the enlarged views and extended
intelligence of mankind."

"I 'm not certain that I quite apprehend you," muttered Harcourt.

"No matter; but you can surely understand that if a set of mere
mediocrities have saved England, a batch of clever men might have done
something more. She came out of the last war the acknowledged head of
Europe: does she now hold that place, and what will she be at the next
great struggle?"

"England is as great as ever she was," cried Harcourt, boldly.

"Greater in nothing is she than in the implicit credulity of her
people!" sighed Upton. "I only wish I could have the same faith in my
physicians that she has in hers! By the way, Stanhope, what of that new
fellow they have got at St. Leonard's? They tell me he builds you up in
some pr