"But come, sir, allow, at least, that if I let my
romance, as you call it, run away with me now and then, I can still
content myself with the reality. What, you shake your head still? Don't
you remember the sparrow?"

"Ha! ha! yes,--the sparrow that the pedlar sold you for a goldfinch; and
you were so proud of your purchase, and wondered so much why you could
not coax the goldfinch to sing, till at last the paint wore away, and it
was only a poor little sparrow!"

"Go on! Confess: did I fret then? Was I not as pleased with my dear
sparrow as I should have been with the prettiest goldfinch that ever
sang? Does not the sparrow follow me about and nestle on my shoulder,
dear little thing? And I was right after all; for if I had not fancied
it a goldfinch, I should not have bought it, perhaps. But now I would
not change it for a goldfinch,--no, not even for that nightingale I
heard just now. So let me still fancy the poor fair a bazaar; it is a
double pleasure, first to fancy the bazaar, and then to be surprised at
the fair."

"You argue well," said the vicar, as they now entered the village; "I
really think, in spite of all your turn for poetry and Goldsmith and
Cowper, that you would take as kindly to mathematics as your cousin John
Ardworth, poor lad!

"Not if mathematics have made him so grave, and so churlish, I was
going to say; but that word does him wrong, dear cousin, so kind and so
rough!"

"It is not mathematics that are to blame if he is grave and
absorbed," said the vicar, with a sigh; "it is the two cares that gnaw
most,--poverty and ambition."

"Nay, do not sigh; it must be such a pleasure to feel, as he does, that
one must triumph at last!"

"Umph! John must have nearly reached London by this time," said Mr.
Fielden, "for he is a stout walker, and this is the third day since he
left us. Well, now that he is about fairly to be called to the Bar, I
hope that his fever will cool, and he will settle calmly to work. I have
felt great pain for him during this last visit."

"Pain! But why?"

"My dear, do you remember what I read to you both from Sir William
Temple the night before John left us?"

Helen put her hand to her brow, and with a readiness which showed a
memory equally quick and retentive, replied, "Yes; was it not to this
effect? I am not sure of the exact words: 'To have something we have
not, and be something we are not, is the root of all evil.'"

"Well remembered, my darling!"

"Ah, b