ast at home to-morrow."

"Ah--when I was your age, I always used to make an early start. Three
hours before breakfast never does any hurt. But it shouldn't be more
than that. The wind gets into the stomach." Harry had no remark to make
on this, and waited, therefore, till Mr. Burton went on. "And you'll be
up in London by the 10th of next month?"

"Yes, sir; I intend to be at Mr. Beilby's office on the 11th."

"That's right. Never lose a day. In losing a day now, you don't lose
what you might earn now in a day, but what you might be earning when
you're at your best. A young man should always remember that. You can't
dispense with a round in the ladder going up. You only make your time at
the top so much the shorter."

"I hope you'll find that I'm all right, sir. I don't mean to be idle."

"Pray don't. Of course, you know, I speak to you very differently from
what I should do if you were simply going away from my office. What I
shall have to give Florence will be very little--that is, comparatively
little. She shall have a hundred a year, when she marries, till I die;
and after my death and her mother's she will share with the others. But
a hundred a year will be nothing to you."

"Won't it, sir? I think a very great deal of a hundred a year. I'm to
have a hundred and fifty from the office; and I should be ready to marry
on that to-morrow."

"You couldn't live on such an income--unless you were to alter your
habits very much."

"But I will alter them."

"We shall see. You are so placed, that by marrying you would lose a
considerable income; and I would advise you to put off thinking of it
for the next two years."

"My belief is, that settling down would be the best thing in the world
to make me work."

"We'll try what a year will do. So Florence is to go to your father's
house at Easter?"

"Yes, sir; she has been good enough to promise to come, if you have no
objection."

"It is quite as well that they should know her early. I only hope they
will like her, as well as we like you. Now I'll say good-night--and
good-by." Then Harry went, and walking up and down the High Street of
Stratton, thought of all that he had done during the past year.

On his arrival at Stratton, that idea of perpetual misery arising from
blighted affection was still strong within his breast. He had given all
his heart to a false woman who had betrayed him. He had risked all his
fortune on one cast of the die, and, gambler-like, ha