yond his powers; and even that
length of ride was a great enterprise. It was much further by the
carriage road, and his sister never liked going there. He had never
failed to visit his old home till last year, and he felt almost glad
that he had not carried his thoughts, at that time, to his father's
grave. It was strange that, with so many more important burdens on
his mind, it had been this apparent trivial omission, this slight to
Stylehurst, that, in both his illnesses, had been the most frequently
recurring idea that had tormented him in his delirium. So deeply,
securely fixed is the love of the home of childhood in men of his mould,
in whom it is perhaps the most deeply rooted of all affections.

Without telling his sister his intention, he hired a horse, and pursued
the familiar moorland tracks. He passed South Moor Farm; it gave him too
great a pang to look at it; he rode on across the hills where he used to
walk with his sisters, and looked down into narrow valleys where he
had often wandered with his fishing-rod, lost in musings on plans for
attaining distinction, and seeing himself the greatest man of his day.
Little had he then guessed the misery which would place him in the way
to the coveted elevation, or how he would loathe it when it lay within
his grasp.

There were the trees round the vicarage, the church spire, the cottages,
whose old rough aspect, he knew so well, the whole scene, once 'redolent
of joy and youth:' but how unable to breathe on him a second spring! He
put up his horse at the village inn, and went to make his first call on
Susan, the old clerk's wife, and one of the persons in all the world who
loved him best. He knocked, opened the door, and saw her, startled from
her tea-drinking, looking at him as a stranger.

'Bless us! It beant never Master Philip!' she exclaimed, her head
shaking very fast, as she recognized his voice. 'Why, sir, what a turn
you give me! How bad you be looking, to be sure!'

He sat down and talked with her, with feelings of comfort. Tidings of
Sir Guy's death had reached the old woman, and she was much grieved for
the nice, cheerful-spoken young gentleman, whom she well remembered; for
she, like almost every one who had ever had any intercourse with him,
had an impression left of him, as of something winning, engaging,
brightening, like a sunbeam. It was a refreshment to meet with one who
would lament him for his own sake, and had no congratulations for Philip