aking the long walk into
the country which my doctor recommended, to take a much shorter one
through the High Street, across the river, and back again, which was
not a walk but a lounge. The country was silent and full of
thoughts,--thoughts not always very agreeable,--whereas there were always
the humors of the little urban population to glance at, the news to be
heard,--all those petty matters which so often make up life in a very
impoverished version for the idle man. I did not like it, but I felt
myself yielding to it, not having energy enough to make a stand. The
rector and the leading lawyer of the place asked me to dinner. I might
have glided into the society, such as it was, had I been disposed for
that; everything about me began to close over me as if I had been fifty,
and fully contented with my lot.

It was possibly my own want of occupation which made me observe with
surprise, after a while, how much occupied my father was. He had
expressed himself glad of my return; but now that I had returned, I saw
very little of him. Most of his time was spent in his library, as had
always been the case. But on the few visits I paid him there, I could not
but perceive that the aspect of the library was much changed. It had
acquired the look of a business-room, almost an office. There were large
business-like books on the table, which I could not associate with
anything he could naturally have to do; and his correspondence was very
large. I thought he closed one of those books hurriedly as I came in, and
pushed it away, as if he did not wish me to see it. This surprised me at
the moment without arousing any other feeling; but afterwards I
remembered it with a clearer sense of what it meant. He was more absorbed
altogether than I had been used to see him. He was visited by men
sometimes not of very prepossessing appearance. Surprise grew in my mind
without any very distinct idea of the reason of it; and it was not till
after a chance conversation with Morphew that my vague uneasiness began
to take definite shape. It was begun without any special intention on my
part. Morphew had informed me that master was very busy, on some occasion
when I wanted to see him. And I was a little annoyed to be thus put off.
"It appears to me that my father is always busy," I said hastily. Morphew
then began very oracularly to nod his head in assent.

"A deal too busy, sir, if you take my opinion," he said.

This startled me much, and I ask