selves; the beloved
will be reunited to us in the life to come. But if he who sets his heart
on fame loses it in this life, what can console him?"

"Did you not say a little while ago that fame allowed of no grave?"

"True; but if we do not achieve it before we ourselves are in the grave,
what comfort can it give to us? Love ascends to heaven, to which we hope
ourselves to ascend; but fame remains on the earth, which we shall never
again revisit. And it is because fame is earth-born that the desire for
it is the most lasting, the regret for the want of it the most bitter,
to the child of earth. But I shall achieve it now; it is already in my
grasp."

By this time the travellers had arrived at the brook, facing the wooden
bridge beside Cromwell Lodge.

Here the minstrel halted; and Kenelm with a certain tremble in his
voice, said, "Is it not time that we should make ourselves known to
each other by name? I have no longer any cause to conceal mine, indeed I
never had any cause stronger than whim,--Kenelm Chillingly, the only son
of Sir Peter, of Exmundham, -----shire."

"I wish your father joy of so clever a son," said the minstrel with his
wonted urbanity. "You already know enough of me to be aware that I am
of much humbler birth and station than you; but if you chance to have
visited the exhibition of the Royal Academy this year--ah! I understand
that start--you might have recognized a picture of which you have seen
the rudimentary sketch, 'The Girl with the Flower-ball,' one of three
pictures very severely handled by 'The Londoner,' but, in spite of
that potent enemy, insuring fortune and promising fame to the wandering
minstrel, whose name, if the sight of the pictures had induced you to
inquire into that, you would have found to be Walter Melville. Next
January I hope, thanks to that picture, to add, 'Associate of the Royal
Academy.' The public will not let them keep me out of it, in spite of
'The Londoner.' You are probably an expected guest at one of the more
imposing villas from which we see the distant lights. I am going to a
very humble cottage, in which henceforth I hope to find my established
home. I am there now only for a few days, but pray let me welcome you
there before I leave. The cottage is called Grasmere."

CHAPTER VI.

THE minstrel gave a cordial parting shake of the hand to the
fellow-traveller whom he had advised to settle down, not noticing how
very cold had become the hand in his own