Such being the case, he thought it much better to write his resolutions to the Earl, than to expose himself to more humiliation by speaking with him on the subject again.  He had suffered sufficiently in their last conversation on that matter, and he felt that he should have enough to endure in the execution of his duties.  He wrote, indeed, as coldly as the Earl had spoken; but he made no allusion to his disappointment, or to any hopes of more elevated employment.

He expressed himself ready to commence his labours as soon as the Earl thought right; and in the course of three days was fully established as the second private secretary of the Earl.

The next three or four months of his life we shall pass over as briefly as possible, for they were chequered by no incident of very great interest.  The Earl employed him daily, but how did he employ him?—­As a mere clerk.  No public paper, no document of any importance, passed through his hands.  Letters on private business, the details of some estates in Shropshire, copies of long and to him meaningless accounts, and notes and memorandums, referring to affairs of very little interest, were the occupations given to a man of active, energetic, and cultivated mind, of eager aspirations, and a glowing fancy.  It may be asked, how did the Earl treat him, too?—­As a clerk! and not as most men of gentlemanly feeling would treat a clerk.  Seldom any salutation marked his entrance into the room, and cold, formal orders were all that he received.

Wilton bore it all with admirable patience; he murmured not, otherwise than in secret; but often when he returned to his own solitary room, in the small lodging he had taken for himself in London, the heart within his bosom felt like a newly-imprisoned bird, as if it would beat itself to death against the bars that confined it.

Amidst all this, there was some consolation came.  A letter arrived one morning, after this had continued about two months, bearing one postmark from Oxford, and another from Italy.  It was from the Earl of Sunbury, who was better, and wrote in high spirits.  He had been arrested by the French, and having been taken for a general officer of distinction, bad been detained for several weeks.  But he had been well treated, and set at liberty, as soon as his real name and character were ascertained.  Only one of Wilton’s letters, and that of an early date, had reached him, so that he knew none of the occurrences which placed his young friend in so painful a situation, but conceived him to be still at Oxford, and still possessing the allowance which he had made him.