d
it likely we should meet. We have, you behold. In point of fact, we owe
the good margravine some show of hospitality. The princess has a passion
for tossing on the sea. To her a yacht is a thing dropped from the moon.
His Highness the prince her father could as soon present her with one as
with the moon itself. The illustrious Serenity's revenue is absorbed,
my boy, in the state he has to support. As for his daughter's dowry, the
young gentleman who anticipates getting one with her, I commend to the
practise of his whistling. It will be among the sums you may count, if
you are a moderate arithmetician, in groschen. The margravine's income I
should reckon to approach twenty thousand per annum, and she proves her
honourable sense that she holds it in trust for others by dispersing it
rapidly. I fear she loves cards. So, then, I shall go and hire the yacht
through Dettermain and Newson, furnish it with piano and swing-cot,
etc.; and if the ladies shrink from a cruise they can have an occasional
sail. Here are we at their service. I shall be seriously baffled by
fortune if I am not back to you at the end of a week. You will take
your early morning walk, I presume. On Sunday see that our chaplain, the
excellent Mr. Peterborough, officiates for the assembled Protestants of
all nations. It excites our English enthusiasm. In addition, son Richie,
it is peculiarly our duty. I, at least, hold the view that it is a
family duty. Think it over, Richie boy. Providence, you see, has sent us
the man. As for me, I feel as if I were in the dawn of one life with all
the mature experience of another. I am calm, I am perfectly unexcited,
and I tell you, old son, I believe--pick among the highest--our
destinies are about the most brilliant of any couple in Great Britain.'

His absence relieved me in spite of my renewed pleasure in his talk; I
may call it a thirsty craving to have him inflating me, puffing the deep
unillumined treasure-pits of my nature with laborious hints, as mines
are filled with air to keep the miners going. While he talked he made
these inmost recesses habitable. But the pain lay in my having now
and then to utter replies. The task of speaking was hateful. I found
a sweetness in brooding unrealizingly over hopes and dreams and
possibilities, and I let him go gladly that I might enjoy a week of
silence, just taking impressions as they came, like the sands in the
ebb-tide. The impression of the morning was always enough f