to whom I transmit little comforting presents,
for if they are nice children such a parent must afflict them.

'Cultivate Lady Wilts. You have made an impression. She puts you forward
as a good specimen of our young men. 'Hem! madam.

'But, my dear boy, as I said, we cannot revive the past. I acknowledge
it. Bath rebukes my last fit of ambition, and the experience is very well
worth the expense. You have a mind, Richie, for discussing outlay, upon
which I congratulate you, so long as you do not overlook equivalents. The
system of the world is barter varied by robbery. Show that you have
something in hand, and you enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you
were not robbed. I pledge you my word to it--I shall not repeat Bath. And
mark you, an heiress is never compromised. I am not, I hope, responsible
for every creature caught up in my circle of attraction. Believe me, dear
boy, I should consult you, and another one, estimable beyond mortal
speech! if I had become involved--impossible! No; I am free of all fresh
chains, because of the old ones. Years will not be sufficient for us when
you and I once begin to talk in earnest, when I open! To resume--so I
leave Bath with a light conscience. Mixed with pleasant recollections is
the transient regret that you were not a spectator of the meeting of the
Wilts and Denewdney streams. Jorian compared them to the Rhone and the--I
forget the name of the river below Geneva--dirtyish; for there was a
transparent difference in the Denewdney style of dress, and did I choose
it I could sit and rule those two factions as despotically as Buonaparte
his Frenchmen. Ask me what I mean by scaling billows, Richie. I will some
day tell you. I have done it all my life, and here I am. But I thank
heaven I have a son I love, and I can match him against the best on
earth, and henceforward I live for him, to vindicate and right the boy,
and place him in his legitimate sphere. From this time I take to looking
exclusively forward, and I labour diligently. I have energies.

'Not to boast, darling old son, I tell truth; I am only happy when my
heart is beating near you. Here comes the mother in me pumping up. Adieu.
Lebe wohl. The German!--the German!--may God in his Barmherzigkeit!--Tell
her I never encouraged the girl, have literally nothing to trace a
temporary wrinkle on my forehead as regards conscience. I say, may it
please Providence to make you a good German scholar by the day of your
majority.