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of walking honestly on your legs. Have faith in yourself; pick these men's brains, and all men's. You can do it. Say to yourself boldly, as the false prophet in India said to the missionary, 'I have fire enough in my stomach to burn up' a dozen stucco and filagree reformers and 'assimilate their ashes' into the bargain, like one of Liebig's cabbages.'

'How can I have faith in myself, when I am playing traitor to myself every hour in the day? And yet faith in something I must have: in woman, perhaps.'

'Never!' said the colonel, energetically. 'In anything but woman! She must be led, not leader. If you love a woman, make her have faith in you. If you lean on her, you will ruin yourself, and her as well.'

Lancelot shook his head. There was a pause.

'After all, colonel, I think there must be a meaning in those old words our mothers used to teach us, about 'having faith in God.'

The colonel shrugged his shoulders.

'Quien sabe? said the Spanish girl, when they asked her who was her child's father. But here comes my kit on a clod's back, and it is time to dress for dinner.

So to the dinner-party they went.

Lord Minchampstead was one of the few noblemen Lancelot had ever met who had aroused in him a thorough feeling of respect. He was always and in all things a strong man. Naturally keen, ready, business-like, daring, he had carved out his own way through life, and opened his oyster—the world,