ture in the world again; expose myself to its
brutal insolence, or still more brutal pity!" In a torrent of passion,
he went on in this strain, till I heartily regretted that I had ever
touched this unlucky topic.

I date his greatest reserve from that same moment; and I am sure he
is disposed to connect me with the casual suggestion to go over to
Stuttgard, and deems me, in consequence, one utterly deficient in all
true feeling and delicacy.

I need n't tell you that my stay here is the reverse of a pleasure. I
'm never what fine people call bored anywhere; and I could amuse myself
gloriously in this queer spot. I have shot some half-dozen seals,
hooked the heaviest salmon I ever saw rise to a fly, and have had rare
coursing,--not to say that Glencore's table, with certain reforms I have
introduced, is very tolerable, and his cellar unimpeachable. I'll back
his chambertin against your Excellency's, and I have discovered a bin
of red hermitage that would convert a whole vineyard of the smallest
Lafitte into Sneyd's claret; but with all these seductions, I can't
stand the life of continued restraint I 'm reduced to. Glencore
evidently sent for me to make some revelations, which, now that he sees
me, he cannot accomplish. For aught I know, there may be as many changes
in _me_ to _his_ eyes as to _mine_ there are in _him_. I only can vouch
for it, that if I ride three stone heavier, I have n't the worse place,
and I don't detect any striking falling off in my appreciation of good
fare and good fellows.

I spoke of the boy; he is a fine lad,--somewhat haughty, perhaps; a
little spoiled by the country people calling him the young lord; but
a generous fellow, and very like Glencore when he first joined us at
Canterbury. By way of educating him himself, Glencore has been driving
Virgil and decimal fractions into him; and the boy, bred in the
country,--never out of it for a day,--can't load a gun or tie a hackle.
Not the worst thing about the lad is his inordinate love for Glencore,
whom he imagines to be about the greatest and most gifted being that
ever lived. I can scarcely help smiling at the implicitness of this
honest faith; but I take good care not to smile; on the contrary, I
give every possible encouragement to the belief. I conclude the
disenchantment will arrive only too early at last.

You 'll not know what to make of such a lengthy epistle from me, and
you 'll doubtless torture that fine diplomatic intelligence