“What could have made you so wretched?” cried the girl, her curiosity so much roused that her own troubles were for the moment forgotten.
“I had lost what I greatly desired.”
“And what could that have been, Ernest?”
“A situation so much below my real rank, that I smile now to think that I could ever have wished for it. Had no difficulties been in my way, had I had what I desired, I probably never should have possessed my birth-right. How glad I am now of what so much distressed me then!”
“And what was it you were so miserable at losing?”
“A place in the service of Mr. Searle.”
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Clementina, opening her eyes to their widest extent. “That was below you indeed; what an escape you made!”
“Perhaps nothing that ever happened to me caused me more pain.”
“Oh! that was because you did not know what you really were, or you would have looked a good deal higher.”
“Now, Clemmy, it seems to me that this is the very reason why you are so unhappy this evening.”