of sherry and a
biscuit. The night was mild and soft, the hedgerows all rustling with
the new life of the spring, and the stars beginning to come out as he
went on; and on the whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were
somewhat muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious
dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at
all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he
trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct
figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappearing
past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew
there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or
illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct
wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him
in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was
all quite plain before him what to do,--to go to the Bank, to tell them
what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as possible.
The consciousness of having this to do acted upon him like a gentle
opiate or dream-charm. When he got to the railway station, and got into
a carriage, he seemed to be floating somehow in a prolonged vision of
light and streaks of darkness, not quite aware now far he was going, or
where he was going, across the country; and even when he arrived at
Carlingford he roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he
had to get out; then he smiled at himself, seeing the gas-lights in a
sort of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and
half-asleep. "If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should have
blamed that," he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind of drowsy,
amiable mental intoxication which affected him, he scarcely could tell
how. When he got within sight of his own house, he paused a moment and
looked up at the lights in the windows. There was music going on; Phoebe,
no doubt, for Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house
looked full and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of
that. Young Copperhead, though he was a dunce, felt it, and showed an
appreciation of better things in his determination not to leave the
house where he had been so happy. Mr. May felt an amiable friendliness
stealing over him for Clarence too.

Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had begun. Phoebe
"had not intended to