lt me at every turn,
especially as I have given him a Gothic design, which pleases him
hugely. Now it is Blanche, whom, in an evil hour, I undertook to teach
to draw, and who comes in on tiptoe, vowing she'll not disturb me, and
sits so quiet that she fidgets me out of all patience. Now, and much
more often, it is the Captain, who wants me to walk, to ride, to fish.
And, by St. Hubert (saint of the chase) bright August comes, and there
is moorgame on those barren wolds; and my uncle has given me the gun he
shot with at my age,--single-barrelled, flint lock; but you would not
have laughed at it if you had seen the strange feats it did in Roland's
hands,--while in mine, I could always lay the blame on the flint lock!
Time, in short, passed rapidly; and if Roland and I had our dark hours,
we chased them away before they could settle,--shot them on the wing as
they got up.

Then, too, though the immediate scenery around my uncle's was so bleak
and desolate, the country within a few miles was so full of objects of
interest,--of landscapes so poetically grand or lovely; and occasionally
we coaxed my father from the Cardan, and spent whole days by the margin
of some glorious lake.

Amongst these excursions I made one by myself to that house in which my
father had known the bliss and the pangs of that stern first-love
which still left its scars fresh on my own memory. The house, large
and imposing, was shut up,--the Trevanions had not been there for
years,--the pleasure-grounds had been contracted into the smallest
possible space. There was no positive decay or ruin,--that Trevanion
would never have allowed; but there was the dreary look of absenteeship
everywhere. I penetrated into the house with the help of my card and
half-a-crown. I saw that memorable boudoir,--I could fancy the very spot
in which my father had heard the sentence that had changed the current
of his life. And when I returned home, I looked with new tenderness on
my father's placid brow, and blessed anew that tender helpmate who in
her patient love had chased from it every shadow.

I had received one letter from Vivian a few days after our arrival. It
had been re-directed from my father's house, at which I had given him my
address. It was short, but seemed cheerful. He said that he believed he
had at last hit on the right way, and should keep to it; that he and the
world were better friends than they had been; that the only way to keep
friends with the wor