believe that in this determination Mr. Stanmore
showed more wisdom than his friends had hitherto given him credit for
possessing. At his own place he had his own affairs to interest him, a
good deal of business to attend to, above all, constant opportunities
of doing good. This it is, I fancy, which constitutes the real pith
and enjoyment of a country gentleman's life--which imparts zest and
flavour to the marking of trees, the setting of trimmers, the shooting
of partridges, nay, even to the joyous excitement of fox-hunting
itself.

This, too, is a wondrous salve for such wounds as those under which
Dick Stanmore was now smarting. The very comparison of our own sorrows
with those of others has a tendency to decrease their proportions
and diminish their importance. How can I prate of my cut finger in
presence of your broken leg? And how utterly ridiculous would have
seemed Mr. Stanmore's sentimental sorrows to one of his own labourers
keeping a wife and half-a-dozen children on eleven shillings a week?

In the whole moral physic-shop there is no anodyne like duty,
sweetened with a little charity towards your neighbours. Amusement
and dissipation simply aggravate the evil. Personal danger, while
its excitement braces nerve and intellect for the time, is an
over-powerful stimulant for the imagination, and leaves a reaction
sadly softening to the heart. Successful ambition, gratified vanity,
what are these with none to share the triumph? But put the sufferer
through a steady course of daily duties, engrossing in their nature,
stupefying in the monotony of their routine, and insensibly, while his
attention is distracted from self and selfish feelings, he gathers
strength, day by day, till at last he is able to look his sorrow in
the face, and fight it fairly, as he would any other honourable foe.
The worst is over then, and victory a mere question of time.

So Dick Stanmore, setting to work with a will, found sleep and
appetite and bodily strength come back rapidly enough. He had moments
of pain, no doubt, particularly when he woke in the morning. Also at
intervals during the day, when the breeze sighed through his woods,
or the sweetbrier's fragrance stole on his senses more heavily than
usual. Once, when a gipsy-girl blessed his handsome face, adding, in
the fervour of her gratitude, a thousand good wishes for "the lass he
loved, as must love him dear, sure-lie!" but for very shame he could
have cried like a child.