n aim or always with a new one. And am I
the one to direct him? I need direction. My lord and sovereign must fix
my mind. I am volatile, earthly, not to be trusted if I do not worship.
He himself said to me that--he reads our characters. "Nothing but a
proved hero will satisfy Henrietta," his words! And the hero must be
shining like a beacon-fire kept in a blaze. Quite true; I own it. Is
Chillon Kirby satisfied? He ought to be.

'But oh!--to be yoked is an insufferable thought, unless we name all the
conditions. But to be yoked to a creature of impulses! Really I could
only describe his erratic nature by commending you to the study of a
dragon-fly. It would map you an idea of what he has been in the
twenty-four hours since we had him here. They tell me a vain sort of
person is the cause. Can she be the cause of his resolving to have a
residence here, to buy up half the valley--erecting a royal palace--and
marking out the site--raving about it in the wildest language, poetical
if it had been a little reasonable--and then, after a night, suddenly,
unaccountably, hating the place, and being under the necessity of flying
from it in hot haste, tearing us all away, as if we were attached to a
kite that will neither mount nor fall, but rushes about headlong. Has he
heard, or suspected? or seen certain boxes bearing a name? Livia has no
suspicion, though she thinks me wonderfully contented in so dull a place,
where it has rained nine days in a fortnight. I ask myself whether my
manner of greeting him betrayed my expectation of another. He has brains.
It is the greatest of errors to suppose him at all like the common run of
rich young noblemen. He seems to thirst for brilliant wits and original
sayings. His ambition is to lead all England in everything! I readily
acknowledge that he has generous ideas too; but try to hold him, deny him
his liberty, and it would be seen how desperate and relentless he would
be to get loose. Of this I am convinced: he would be either the most
abject of lovers, or a woman (if it turned out not to be love) would find
him the most unscrupulous of yoke-fellows. Yoke-fellow! She would not
have her reason in consenting. A lamb and a furious bull! Papa and I have
had a serious talk. He shuts his ears to my comparisons, but admits, that
as I am the principal person concerned, etc. Rich and a nobleman is too
tempting for an anxious father; and Livia's influence is paramount. She
has not said a syllable in d