Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/217

Rh from that date, all trace of her history was lost. At the end of that time, what was Welford? a man rapidly rising in the world, distinguished at the Bar, where his first brief had lifted him into notice, commencing a flattering career in the Senate, holding lucrative and honourable offices, esteemed for the austere rectitude of his moral character, gathering the golden opinions of all men, as he strode onward to public reputation. He had reassumed his hereditary name; his early history was unknown; and no one in the obscure and distant town of had ever guessed that the humble Welford was the William Brandon whose praise was echoed in so many journals, and whose rising genius was acknowledged by all. That asperity, roughness, and gloom which had noted him at, and which being natural to him, he deigned not to disguise in a station ungenial to his talents and below his hopes, were now glitteringly varnished over by an hypocrisy well calculated to aid his ambition. So learnedly could this singular man fit himself to others, that few among the great met him as a companion, nor left him without the temper to