needs but one patron; namely, THE LUCKY MOMENT.

"At his house in Carlton Gardens, Guy Darrell, Esq., for the season."

Simple insertion in the pompous list of Fashionable Arrivals! the name
of a plain commoner embedded in the amber which glitters with so many
coronets and stars! Yet such is England, with all its veneration for
titles, that the eyes of the public passed indifferently over the rest
of that chronicle of illustrious "whereabouts," to rest with interest,
curiosity, speculation, on the unemblazoned name which but a day before
had seemed slipped out of date,--obsolete as that of an actor who
figures no more in play-bills. Unquestionably the sensation excited
was due, in much, to the "ambiguous voices" which Colonel Morley had
disseminated throughout the genial atmosphere of club-rooms. "Arrived
in London for the season!"--he, the orator, once so famous, long so
forgotten, who had been out of the London world for the space of
more than half a generation. "Why now? why for the season?" Quoth the
Colonel, "He is still in the prime of life as a public man, and--a
CRISIS is at hand!"

But that which gave weight and significance to Alban Morley's hints
was the report in the newspapers of Guy Darrell's visit to his old
constituents, and of the short speech he had addressed to them, to which
he had so slightly referred in his conversation with Alban. True, the
speech was short: true, it touched but little on passing topics of
political interest; rather alluding, with modesty and terseness, to
the contests and victories of a former day. But still, in the few words
there was the swell of the old clarion, the wind of the Paladin's horn
which woke Fontarabian echoes.

It is astonishing how capricious, how sudden, are the changes in value
of a public man. All depends upon whether the public want, or believe
they want, the man; and that is a question upon which the public do not
know their own minds a week before; nor do they always keep in the same
mind, when made up, for a week together. If they do not want a man;
if he do not hit the taste, nor respond to the exigency of the
time,--whatever his eloquence, his abilities, his virtues, they push
him aside or cry him down. Is he wanted? does the mirror of the moment
reflect his image?--that mirror is an intense magnifier--his proportions
swell; they become gigantic. At that moment the public wanted some man;
and the instant the hint was given, "Why not Guy Darrell?" Guy