Horatio by this time having a little recovered himself, and sensible he
had gone rather too far, seconded what the baron had said, and no more
observations were made on it.
That same evening, the prince having made it his request, was Horatio
permitted to kiss the hand of the Chevalier St. George, and the ensuing
day took possession of the apartment appropriated to the office
bestowed on him.
After having received the congratulations of a whole court, who
testified a great deal of satisfaction in having him among them, and
paid his compliments in a particular manner to mademoiselle Charlotta,
he took abundance of pleasure in viewing all the apartments of a palace
famous for the birth of one of the greatest monarchs of the age, and for
being the asylum of the distrest royal family of England: when his
attendance on his master gave him leisure, he frequently passed many
hours together in a closet, where he was told the late king James used
to retire every day to pray for the prosperity of that people who had
abjur'd him. Young as Horatio was, and gay by nature, he sometimes loved
to indulge the most serious meditations; and this place, as well as the
condition of those he served, remonstrating to him the instability of
all human greatness, he made this general reflection, that there was
nothing truly valuable but virtue, because the owner could be deprived
of that only by himself, and not by either the fraud or force of others.
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