ircumstances in
relation to the world. Perhaps the old peer turned a little ashamed
of his own conduct, and dared not aver to the congregation of the
righteous, (for he became saintly in his latter days,) the very
pretty frolics which he seems to have been guilty of in his youth.
Perhaps, also, the death of my right honourable mother operated in
my favour, since, while she lived, my chance was the worse--there is
no saying what a man will do to spite his wife.--Enough, he
died--slept with his right honourable fathers, and I became, without
opposition, Right Honourable in his stead.

"How I have borne my new honours, thou, Harry, and our merry set,
know full well. Newmarket and Tattersal's may tell the rest. I think
I have been as lucky as most men where luck is most prized, and so I
shall say no more on that subject.

"And now, Harry, I will suppose thee in a moralizing mood; that is,
I will fancy the dice have run wrong--or your double-barrel has hung
fire--or a certain lady has looked cross--or any such weighty cause
of gravity has occurred, and you give me the benefit of your
seriousness.--'My dear Etherington,' say you pithily, 'you are a
precious fool!--Here you are, stirring up a business rather
scandalous in itself, and fraught with mischief to all concerned--a
business which might sleep for ever, if you let it alone, but which
is sure, like a sea-coal fire, to burst into a flame if you go on
poking it. I would like to ask your lordship only two
questions,'--say you, with your usual graceful attitude of adjusting
your perpendicular shirt-collar, and passing your hand over the knot
of your cravat, which deserves a peculiar place in the
_Tietania_[II-A][II-5]--'only two questions--that is, Whether you do
not repent the past, and whether you do not fear the future?' Very
comprehensive queries, these of yours, Harry; for they respect both
the time past and the time to come--one's whole life, in short.
However, I shall endeavour to answer them as well as I may.

"Repent the past, said you?--Yes, Harry, I think I do repent the
past--that is, not quite in the parson's style of repentance, which
resembles yours when you have a headache, but as I would repent a
hand at cards which I had played on false principles. I should have
begun with the young lady--availed myself in a very