ange land, without friends and without
recommendation? No; I must wait a little; I must labour hard to improve
my talent, and to produce something worth while as a specimen of my
powers, something to speak favourably for me, whether as an actual
painter or a teacher. Brilliant success, of course, I did not look for,
but some degree of security from positive failure was indispensable: I
must not take my son to starve. And then I must have money for the
journey, the passage, and some little to support us in our retreat in
case I should be unsuccessful at first: and not too little either: for
who could tell how long I might have to struggle with the indifference or
neglect of others, or my own inexperience or inability to suit their
tastes?

What should I do then? Apply to my brother and explain my circumstances
and my resolves to him? No, no: even if I told him all my grievances,
which I should be very reluctant to do, he would be certain to disapprove
of the step: it would seem like madness to him, as it would to my uncle
and aunt, or to Milicent. No; I must have patience and gather a hoard of
my own. Rachel should be my only confidante--I thought I could persuade
her into the scheme; and she should help me, first, to find out a
picture-dealer in some distant town; then, through her means, I would
privately sell what pictures I had on hand that would do for such a
purpose, and some of those I should thereafter paint. Besides this, I
would contrive to dispose of my jewels, not the family jewels, but the
few I brought with me from home, and those my uncle gave me on my
marriage. A few months' arduous toil might well be borne by me with such
an end in view; and in the interim my son could not be much more injured
than he was already.

Having formed this resolution, I immediately set to work to accomplish
it, I might possibly have been induced to wax cool upon it afterwards, or
perhaps to keep weighing the pros and cons in my mind till the latter
overbalanced the former, and I was driven to relinquish the project
altogether, or delay the execution of it to an indefinite period, had not
something occurred to confirm me in that determination, to which I still
adhere, which I still think I did well to form, and shall do better to
execute.

Since Lord Lowborough's departure I had regarded the library as entirely
my own, a secure retreat at all hours of the day. None of our gentlemen
had the smallest pretensions to a