ood or expected that the tide will turn, somehow, and rise. Not
unfrequently the understanding and the expectation are disappointed.
Still, there are sufficiently numerous instances of the fulfilment of
both, to warrant the hope which is usually entertained by men and women
whose tide has reached its lowest.

Mr Hazlit was naturally of a sanguine temperament. He entertained, we
had almost said, majestic views on many points. Esteeming himself "a
beggar" on three hundred a year--the remains of the wreck of his vast
fortune--he resolved to commence business again. Being a man of strict
probity and punctuality in all business matters, and being much
respected and sympathised with by his numerous business friends, he
experienced little difficulty in doing so. Success attended his
efforts; the tide began to rise.

Seated in a miniature parlour, before a snug fire, in his cottage by the
sea, with one of the prettiest girls in all England by his side,
knitting him a pair of inimitable socks, the "beggar" opened his mouth
slowly and spake.

"Aileen," said he, "I've been a fool!"

Had Mr Hazlit said so to some of his cynical male friends they might
have tacitly admitted the fact, and softened the admission with a smile.
As it was, his auditor replied:--

"No, papa, you have _not_."

"Yes, my love, I have. But I do not intend to prove the point or
dispute it. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the
ebb, leads on to fortune."

Aileen suspended her knitting and looked at her sire with some surprise,
for, being a very matter-of-fact unpoetical man, this misquotation
almost alarmed her.

"`Taken at the _flood_,' is it not, papa?"

"It may be so in Shakespeare's experience. _I_ say the ebb. When first
I was reduced to beggary--"

"You never were _that_, papa. We have never yet had to beg."

"Of course, of course," said Mr Hazlit, with a motion of his hand to
forbid further interruption. "When I say `beggary,' you know what I
mean. I certainly do _not_ mean that I carry a wallet and a staff, and
wear ragged garments, and knock at backdoors. Well, when I was reduced
to beggary, I had reached the lowest ebb. At that time I was led--mark
me, I was led--to `take the tide.' I took it, and have been rising with
the flood to fortune ever since. And yet, strange to say, though I am
now rich in a way I never before dreamed of, I have still an insane
thirst for earthly gold. What was the passage,